


It's a Love Story (but don't tell Taylor Swift)

by Erushi



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Crushes, Friends to Lovers, Jealousy, Long-Haired Victor Nikiforov, M/M, Midsummer Night's Dream, Pining, References to Shakespeare, Theatre, Underage Drinking, Viktuuri Big Bang 2017
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-28
Updated: 2017-06-28
Packaged: 2018-11-20 04:37:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 27,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11328741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Erushi/pseuds/Erushi
Summary: “You’re the best friend ever,” Victor declared.And that,Yuuri reflected ruefully,was the problem.---Or: The high school AU in which Yuuri has a crush on his oblivious best friend.





	It's a Love Story (but don't tell Taylor Swift)

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Viktuuri Reverse Bang 2017 challenge.
> 
> Art by the lovely [sanpape](http://sanpape.tumblr.com/) is embedded in the fic, and can also be found [here](http://sanpape.tumblr.com/post/162356668945/hey-guys-heres-the-illustrations-ive-been).
> 
> Beta by [jan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jan/pseuds/jan) and [AriesDraco](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AriesDraco/pseuds/AriesDraco), both of whom are worth their weight in gold. All remaining errors are mine alone.

 [       ](http://s38.photobucket.com/user/moonhouse10/media/the%20bannder%202_zpsigdrueea.jpg.html)

=-=-=

 _So he falls in love to feel that he's falling_  
_[H]e'll let him know his heart_  
_Oh, don't you know it_  
_That's Shakespeare in love_

\- Shakespeare in Love (Layla Kaylif)

=-=-=

The ice rink echoed with shouts and the occasional hollow _thunk_ of a hockey puck being hit by a stick.

Yuuri winced at the noise as he picked his way through the bleachers, past where the school’s ice hockey team was practising drills, and on towards the back, where the figure skating club had carved out a quieter patch of ice for themselves. Once there, he dropped into a seat, placing his bag beside him, and watched idly as the skaters skated long, spiralling loops under their coach’s watchful eye.

Eventually, one of the skaters broke away, skating up to the edge of the rink. Yuuri heaved himself out of the seat, and made his way to the railings with a broad smile.

From the ice, Victor graced him with an answering grin and a wave. “Yuuri, you came!”

“Can’t have you leaving school without me,” Yuuri retorted cheekily as they met at the railings.

Victor laughed, glancing at the giant clock that was mounted on the wall. “I’m not done yet,” he said, sounding apologetic.

Yuuri shrugged. “Dance practice ended early today,” he explained. “Thought I’d come by and see what it is you fancy skaters do for a change.”

Victor laughed. “Just because our club always gets more funding….”

“And an ice rink on campus, don’t forget,” Yuuri interjected. “How many other high schools have that?”

Victor stuck out his tongue.

“You should probably get going,” Yuuri observed, nodding his chin towards Victor’s coach, who had finally noticed his absence.

Victor sighed. “Yakov is too strict.” He pushed away from the railings, ready to skate back, but paused. “You’ll be waiting for me here, yeah?”

Yuuri waved him off, then returned to his seat in the bleachers. By now, he knew Victor’s after-school schedule almost as well his own, and he knew that Victor still had at least twenty minutes more on the clock to go before the figure skating team would call it a day.

Yuuri didn’t mind waiting. It gave him another opportunity to watch Victor skate.

Humming, he plugged his earbuds into his cell phone and cued his usual playlist, the music turned up loud. He pulled out his trigonometry homework, and settled into a rhythm of sneaking a surreptitious glance at the ice with every couple of mathematical equations solved.

Before he realised it, Victor was standing beside him, looking over his shoulder. Yuuri looked up randomly, and jumped.

“Don’t do that!” he protested weakly, punching Victor half-heartedly on his thigh.

Victor ignored him, peering instead at Yuuri’s homework. “I should have you do my math assignments for me,” he mused.

Yuuri huffed as he gathered his things together and shoved them back into his bag. “You wouldn’t be able to afford me.”

“That’s cold, Yuuri.”

“No colder than you deserve.”

“Hmph,” Victor pouted. “Anyway, I’m done,” he announced, offering Yuuri a hand up.

“I figured,” Yuuri said dryly, slinging the strap of his bag onto his shoulder before taking Victor’s hand and allowing himself to be hauled onto his feet.

“Guys, I’m off!” Victor called out to the rest of the skaters, waving. He elbowed Yuuri gently. “Yuuri, say bye.”

Yuuri glared at Victor, but waved awkwardly to the rest of the skaters, who waved back. They were used to him coming around by now, even though he had never spoken to any of them. Grumpily, he trailed Victor out of the hall where the rink was housed.

“Not showering?” he asked as they passed the door to the locker rooms, heading instead for the rest of the school’s corridors.

“Nah,” said Victor. “Figured I’d shower at home instead.”

“You’re lucky I don’t mind sharing a car with your stinky ass,” Yuuri joked as Victor led them through the exit of the main hall and out onto the carpark.

Victor wiggled his butt cheekily. “What are you talking about? You love my ass.”

Yuuri snorted, giving Victor a playful shove. “Idiot,” he said affectionately.

Victor laughed as he unlocked the doors to his car, an old, second-hand Hyundai. It was clunky, and had enough scratches in its white paintwork to look like an exercise in abstract modern art from certain angles, but it was reliable. Or at least, Victor claimed that the car had never broken down once since he had purchased it. Yuuri supposed he couldn’t exactly hold the car’s appearance against it. After all, Victor gave Yuuri a ride to school every morning in the car, and another ride back home at the end of the day. 

(Victor also insisted that the scratches gave the car Character. The way he said it, Yuuri could almost hear the capital C. Privately, Yuuri thought that the judgment was still out on that.)

Victor was usually the one who did most of the talking during their rides, and that evening was no different. Yuuri allowed the sound of Victor’s voice to wash over him, filling the car, as he settled into his seat. He rested his forehead against the passenger window as he watched Victor’s reflection in the glass.

Eventually, Victor slowed as they neared the turn that would take them to the street on which Yuuri lived. Victor reached out a hand, touching Yuuri’s shoulder lightly. Yuuri blinked out of his daze.

“Hey,” Victor said, when Yuuri looked at him, “your parents aren’t home yet, are they?”

“No.” Yuuri’s parents ran a small diner in the downtown area, catering mainly to the weekday office crowd. It would be a couple more hours yet before they returned.

Victor hummed. He kept his hand on Yuuri’s shoulder, steering single-handed as he drove to the next turn on the road and took that instead. They drew up in front of Victor’s house shortly after.

“Come on,” Victor said, finally retrieving his hand. He undid his seatbelt, then reached behind into the backseat for his bag. “My parents are out too. Let’s just keep each other company in the meantime.”

“We’re not ten anymore,” Yuuri grumbled for the sake of grumbling. He bit back his smile as he got out of the car, slinging his bag onto his shoulder.

Victor allowed Yuuri to precede him into the house. Yuuri only realised why when he found himself tackled to the floor by something large, brown, and furry. A wet tongue licked his cheek enthusiastically.

“Down, Makkachin,” Victor ordered from where he stood beside Yuuri’s head. He was laughing, that asshole. Yuuri made sure to smack him hard between the shoulder blades when he finally got up, earning himself a baleful glare in turn.

“You deserved that,” Yuuri said stubbornly.

Victor sniffed, but let Yuuri follow him around anyway as he refilled Makkachin’s bowls, before grabbing them both something to drink from the kitchen. “Come on up,” he said, two mugs clutched in his hands as he started on the stairs. “Let’s go to my – Yuuri, stop him!”

Yuuri swore, diving for Makkachin just as the poodle made an attempt for the stairs too. Victor’s parents had strict rules about not allowing the dog upstairs into the bedrooms. Unfortunately, Makkachin seemed to be the only one in the Nikiforov household who hadn’t got the memo.

Somehow, together, they managed to corral Makkachin back into the converted guest room downstairs. Panting, they finally made it to Victor’s room, where Yuuri promptly collapsed onto Victor’s bed.

“Make yourself at home,” Victor said, placing their drinks on his desk. He dropped his bag onto the floor. Then, he began to pull his training shirt off over his shoulders. “I’m gonna grab a shower.”

Yuuri rolled onto his stomach and propped himself up on his forearms as he watched, unabashedly, while Victor stripped. He gave a low whistle as Victor began to shimmy out of his skating pants and underwear.

Victor looked up and winked, and wiggled his ass at Yuuri. He grabbed a towel from the back of the chair and padded out of the room, gloriously naked, to where the bathroom was.

Only then did Yuuri allow himself to curl onto his side, burrowing under the covers and burying his head in a pillow. Victor’s bed was warm and his sheets smelled of him. It was familiar. Comforting. Slowly, Yuuri closed his eyes as his mind gradually began to drift.

He awoke with a start.

There was a hand on his shoulder. Yuuri blinked muzzily as he lifted his head from the pillow.

“Hey,” Victor was saying. He had put on clothes in the meantime, a corner of Yuuri’s mind noted with disappointment: an old t-shirt and a pair of pyjama bottoms. Victor’s hair, however, was still wet from the shower. “It’s time to get up. My parents are home. Yours too, probably. I should send you back.”

Yuuri struggled to sit up. Once successful, he reached for the towel that was draped across Victor’s shoulders, and gave one of its ends a light tug. “After I help you dry off.” He pursed his lips, frowing. “You look like a drowned rat.”

Victor stuck out his tongue, but reached all the same for the hair dryer on the dresser. He unravelled the cord that was wrapped around its handle and plugged it into the socket. “Here,” he said, offering the hair dryer to Yuuri, who took it.

“Sit,” Yuuri ordered, patting the mattress between the vee of his thighs. Obligingly, Victor did, and Yuuri smiled.

Yuuri worked silently, his movements smooth with the ease of long practice as he parted Victor’s hair into sections, and directed the hot air at each newly parted section in turn. He combed his fingers gently through the long strands, carefully working out the tangles and knots he found.

When Victor’s hair was mostly dry, Yuuri thumbed the hair dryer off but continued to card his hands through Victor’s hair, revelling in the way the smooth strands slipped through his fingers. Victor’s hair was soft as down like this, still warm to touch from the hot air that had been blown on it. It was why Yuuri never minded doing this for Victor.

Victor hummed in contentment at Yuuri’s ministrations. The hum turned into a groan of relief when Yuuri’s fingers finally settled on Victor’s scalp and began to knead away at the tightness they found there.

He gave a particularly loud groan as Yuuri dug his fingers into a large knot at the base of Victor’s skull.

“You’re the best friend ever,” Victor declared blissfully. He leaned back with a sigh, resting his back against Yuuri’s chest.

 _And that_ , Yuuri reflected ruefully as he continued to run his fingers through Victor’s hair, _was the problem._

=-=-=

Phichit was already shifting impatiently in his seat by the time Yuuri and Victor slunk into the classroom, narrowly missing the morning bell. “You’re late,” he said by way of greeting, while Yuuri dropped into the seat beside him.

“Couldn’t be helped,” Yuuri replied, carefully not looking at Victor as Victor took a seat on the other side of the classroom, beside one of the skaters – Chris, Yuuri’s memory supplied. Instead, he dug through his book bag, and made a tiny noise of triumph as he pulled out his dog-eared copy of _Theatre and the World_ , dropping it onto his desk with a small flourish. “Victor overslept.”

Phichit sniggered. “Are you sure it wasn’t _you_ who overslept?”

“You’re just jealous that you don’t have a neighbour who gives you a ride to school every morning,” Yuuri shot back good-naturedly as he continued to rummage around inside his book bag. A notebook and a couple of ballpoint pens joined his textbook on the worn surface of his desk.

Yuuri zipped his book bag shut, placing it on the floor beside his chair. Then, he turned to regard Phichit fully. “So, what is it?”

Phichit’s eyes widened comically. “What is _what_?”

“Whatever it is that you want to say.”

“What makes you think that I want to say anything?”

“That,” Yuuri said, pointing at the pen which Phichit had been spinning between his forefinger and thumb from the moment Yuuri had sat down. “I know you. Come on, spit it out.”

Phichit laughed again, a delighted expression on his face. He leaned towards Yuuri conspiratorially, their shoulders brushing. “I hear Takeshi confessed to Yuuko last week. They’re going out now.”

Yuuri bit back a smile. “And?” he asked loftily.

Phichit’s eyebrows rose. “And you’re not heartbroken?”

“Why should I be heartbroken?” Yuuri asked, his tone deliberately innocent.

“Weren’t you going out with Yuuko?”

Yuuri snorted, crossing his arms. “You _know_ that rumour wasn’t true.”

“That still doesn’t tell me what happened,” Phichit pointed out.

Phichit really did love his gossip, Yuuri reflected ruefully. He relented. “Takeshi approached me last week to ask if Yuuko and I were really dating. I told him that we were just friends, and that he should go for it.”

Phichit squinted suspiciously. “And that was all?”

Yuuri shook his head. “I may have told him that I had a crush on someone else, and that she had a crush on _him_.”

“Ah,” Phichit breathed, finally leaning back in his seat. He pursed his lips contemplatively. Yuuri could almost imagine the cogs in Phichit’s mind whirring as he mentally filed the latest bit of news away. Phichit nodded, as though satisfied. Then, he looked up, his eyes sharp. “And who _is_ your crush, Yuuri?”

Yuuri stuck out his tongue. “I’m not going to tell you.”

“But I’ve been trying to find out for ages!”

“Then you can wait a little longer to find out,” Yuuri declared decisively. He continued to look away from the corner of the classroom where Victor sat, and allowed his gaze to drift instead towards the door, and the bit of hallway that was just visible outside. He elbowed Phichit. “Incoming,” he murmured, just as Mr Cialdini strode into the classroom.

 “Ciao Ciao seems to be in a good mood today,” Phichit muttered later, while Mr Cialdini paced the length of the classroom excitedly, his hands moving in broad, sweeping gestures as he extolled the merits of theatre as a medium for political and social satire. “Wonder why.”

“Could be that end-of-term project he was going on and on about last week,” Yuuri ventured, sotto voce. Mr Cialdini had spent half of the last theatre class announcing, with great enthusiasm, that a quarter of their grade would be derived from all of them pairing up and performing a short skit at the end of the month. Something about breaking down boundaries and discovering new facets of themselves while on stage. Yuuri still wasn’t quite sure what the entire _point_ of the exercise would be.

Phichit grunted softly. “Maybe.” He jerked his chin in the direction of the small cardboard box which Mr Cialdini had brought into the classroom with him today, and which was now placed conspicuously in the centre of the teacher’s desk. “Think he’ll make us draw lots for our partners?”

Yuuri eyed the box with trepidation. “I hope not.”

Unfortunately, Phichit was right.

Forty minutes later, Yuuri stared at the lightly crumpled slip of paper in his hand. _10_ , the number read in Mr Cialdini’s sloping script. “What number did you get?” he asked Phichit as Phichit returned to his seat.

Phichit unfolded the slip he had drawn from the box. “Sixteen.”

Yuuri sighed. 

They waited, fidgeting in their places, while their other classmates took their turns to draw from the box. Then, Mr Cialdini clapped his hands sharply. As one, the class rose. Babble and shouts filled the air as everyone tried to find the classmate with a matching number.

Yuuri craned his neck, looking around desperately.

“Ten!” someone called. “Who’s holding on to the other ten?”

Squaring his shoulders, Yuuri turned and headed towards the voice. “Me!” he said, as he drew closer… and swallowed. “Vi-Victor?”

“Yuuri!” Victor exclaimed, a broad grin breaking across his face. “Wow, amazing! What were the chances?”

“Yeah, amazing,” Yuuri retorted dryly, unable to help the matching grin that spread across his lips, even as his heart stuttered. “Guess I’ll be stuck with your sorry ass this time.”

“My ass is fine and you know it,” Victor said with a wink.

Yuuri hoped, very hard, that he wasn’t blushing. He punched Victor lightly on the arm. “You’re shameless.”

Victor shrugged and beamed, seemingly unconcerned. “Have you thought about what you’d like to do yet?”

Yuuri shrugged. “Not really. I don’t mind going along with whatever you like.”

Victor frowned. “That won’t do. It’s your project too.”

Yuuri bit his lip as he shrugged again, this time uncomfortably. “Like I said, I really don’t mind.”

Victor opened his mouth to reply. At the same time, the bell in the hallway rang.

“What do you have next?” Yuuri asked in a rush, grateful for the reprieve.

“Physics,” Victor said. He had a familiar gleam in his eye, one that Yuuri recognised from their years of growing up in each other’s pockets. It usually preceded Victor dragging Yuuri into whatever latest, craziest idea had just happened to capture Victor’s imagination.

“I have Chemistry,” Yuuri cut in hurriedly, before Victor could give voice to his newest idea. “We should probably get going.” He gestured vaguely at their surroundings, where some of their classmates had begun to pack up.

Victor huffed. “We’ll discuss this later,” he said, in a tone that did not brook any argument.

“Later,” Yuuri echoed, and tried not to think about all the ways in which spending even more time with Victor could go wrong.

=-=-=

 _Later_ turned out to be later that night.

Chemistry was followed by Advanced Mathematics, and then Geography, neither one of which was an elective which Victor took. At lunch, Yuuri and Phichit eschewed their usual table in the cafeteria with the other male dancers comprising their performance group, opting instead to sprawl on the grassy quad. Thereafter, the rest of the afternoon was filled with more classes which Yuuri and Victor did not share. After school, it turned out that the figure skating team had some sort of friendly skate-off with a school in the next county, so Yuuri caught a ride home with Phichit instead.

Naturally, it was not until after dinner when Yuuri saw Victor again.

His only warning was the sound of Victor’s voice, calling out a cheerful _Good evening!_ on the stairs outside Yuuri’s room, before his bedroom door was thrown open and the owner of the voice grinned at him from the doorway.

Yuuri scrunched his nose. “Haven’t you heard of knocking?”

Victor simply pouted in response.

Yuuri rolled his eyes. “Oh, fine,” he said with a sigh, heaving himself off his bed and stepping around Victor to close the door. “Make yourself comfortable,” he added dryly, as Victor made a beeline for Yuuri’s bed, where he sprawled, taking up more space than seemed humanly possible. Yuuri gave Victor a light shove as he clambered back onto the mattress. “Come on, shift.”

Victor rolled onto his belly, and propped himself up on his elbows. “I’m here,” he announced, “to discuss our theatre project.”

“I figured,” Yuuri said wryly, as he arranged his limbs once again into a comfortable position. He picked up the book he had been in the middle of reading, before Victor had burst in.

Victor eyed the book with interest. “What’s that?”

Yuuri marked his page with a dog-ear, before flipping the book shut and handing it to Victor. “You told me to think of something I’d like to do for our performance, didn’t you?

Victor took it wordlessly, turning it over and studying its cover. “ _A Midsummer Night’s Dream_? Didn’t we study this for Literature last term?”

Yuuri shrugged. “I thought it’d be easier if we used something which we were already familiar with. Maybe a couple of scenes with Oberon and Titania, when they’re arguing at the start of the play in the faerie court, and later at the end when they’ve reconciled. It would be an interesting contrast.”

He shifted restlessly, kicking his legs up onto the bed. Immediately, Victor curled up against his extended legs, pillowing his head on Yuuri’s thighs. Yuuri arched a brow, and Victor grinned up at him unrepentantly.

Yuuri snorted. “You,” he added, giving Victor’s long hair a playful tug, “could be Titania.”

Victor chortled, swatting Yuuri’s hand away without heat.

They lapsed into silence then, Victor thumbing through the play, pausing at random to read a line or three before moving on again, while Yuuri looked on idly.

“No,” Victor frowned suddenly.

“No?” Yuuri echoed.

“No, not Oberon and Titania. Everyone would expect that. I want,” he paused dramatically, “to surprise our audience.”

Yuuri huffed. “This isn’t like your skating, you know.”

Victor ignored him. He flipped to the next page, then passed the opened book back to Yuuri. “Here,” he said, jabbing his forefinger meaningfully at a speech in the middle of the page. “That’s what we’re going to do: _The Most Lamentable Comedy and Cruel Death of Pyramus and Thisbe_.”

Yuuri blinked. “Come again?”

“Pyramus and Thisbe,” Victor repeated patiently, “you know, that play within a play, performed by a bunch of side characters at the Duke’s wedding towards the end of the play?” He tapped his finger on the paper again for emphasis.

Yuuri squinted. “What, the story about a pair of lovers who can only meet through a hole in the wall?”

“That’s the one,” Victor confirmed.

“Isn’t that the one which the actors play their roles so badly, that the Duke and his guests laugh at them?”

“Yep.”

Yuuri stared at him incredulously. “Are you sure that you want to do that?”

“It’s perfect,” Victor retorted. “It fits what Ciao Ciao’s been saying all term about the stage as a construct. And,” he paused dramatically, “everybody only thinks of the main characters. Nobody thinks of the side characters playing even more minor characters.”

Yuuri rolled his eyes. “For good reason. Flute and Bottom are completely unmemorable, except for the parts when Bottom gets transformed into an ass. No one wants to watch us play Flute and Bottom while Flute and Bottom play Thisbe and Pyramus.” He groaned feelingly. “See? This play within a play thing gets confusing real fast.”

“Come on,” Victor pouted. A pleading note crept into his voice.

Yuuri met Victor’s eyes and sighed. Unfortunately for Yuuri, Victor was irresistible whenever he put his mind to it. “Alright,” he sighed again, giving in.

Victor’s grinned immediately, bright and triumphant. “Great. Let’s start planning this.”

Against his judgment, Yuuri found himself smiling back as he got up once more from the bed, this time to fetch some loose sheets of paper and a couple of pens from his desk.

Two hours later, however, they were still nowhere near figuring out all their stage directions.

“There’s still the lion,” Yuuri pointed out. He removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes tiredly. Beside him, Victor flopped on his back with a sigh. “We need a lion to attack Thisbe.”

Victor gave another sigh as he craned his neck to meet Yuuri’s eyes. “I’ve told you already, we’ll just _mime_ the lion.”

“Too messy,” Yuuri countered. “And I can’t mime being attacked by a lion convincingly.”

“Then we’ll swap. I’ll play Thisbe,” Victor said sharply. “And I’ll mime myself getting attacked by the lion.” He waved a hand dismissively. “ _You_ can be Pyramus.”

“Fine,” Yuuri snapped.

“ _Fine_ ,” Victor retorted.

They glared at each other. Yuuri crossed his arms defensively. From his angle, he could tell that Victor was grinding his teeth.

Then, abruptly, Victor barked a laugh.

Yuuri arched a brow. “What so funny?” he snapped, his tone sharper than he’d intended.

“It’s just…” Victor trailed off, his expression rueful as his shoulders slumped. “We’ve never had to work together in school before. And now that we’re finally doing our first project together, we’re _arguing_.”

Yuuri felt a sheepish smile tug at the corners of his lips, his growing irritation in the past hour disappearing in a flash. “Think we should still be sticking together in college?”

Because that had been the plan, formed gradually between them over the past year, after college applications suddenly became a Thing: Victor in Northeastern University for its skating programme, Yuuri at Boston Conservatory for dance, and them always, always meeting in the middle, meeting in between.

Yuuri was always careful not to show just how much he was looking forward to it, in part because he was afraid that, by hoping too hard, he’d jinx it.

Victor’s mouth quirked. “Why shouldn’t we?” he threw back. The tone of his voice suggested that it was the most natural thing in the world. “We’re best friends, aren’t we?” He found Yuuri’s hand on the mattress between them and interlaced their fingers, giving Yuuri’s hand a soft squeeze.

Yuuri’s heart swelled.  He couldn’t keep the soft, fond smile from creeping over his face. He turned his head away, hiding it. “Let’s take a break,” he suggested.

“Sure,” Victor agreed easily. He released Yuuri’s hand as he rolled off the other side of the bed and stood up, stretching. Yuuri tried not to mourn the loss.

“Hey, Yuuri,” Victor said, lowering his arms.

“Hm?”

“Why don’t we hang out much at school?”

Yuuri blinked. “What do you mean?”

“We’re best friends, right?” At Yuuri’s nod, he continued, “And we’ve known each other for ages.”

“Since we were eight,” Yuuri agreed. “Ballet class.” That had been fun, the two of them bonding over being the only boys in their class. Their parents had met at the end of that first class too, to pick their sons up, whereupon it was discovered that their families lived a street apart. It was not long after that Victor and Yuuri became inseparable in their after-school hours.

“So why don’t we?” Victor asked again.

Yuuri shrugged. “You know how it is. Different classes, different friends. I have Phichit and the other dancers. You have your skaters.”

“Hm.” Victor frowned as he flopped back down onto his bed. A finger came up to tap at his pursed lips contemplatively. Then, all of a sudden, he bolted upright again. “Ah!’

Yuuri eyed him warily.

“Have lunch with me tomorrow.”

“What?”

“Maybe the problem is that we’re just not used to being with each other where school’s concerned.” Victor beamed, seemingly proud of himself for having figured it all out – whatever _it_ was. “So join my table during lunch, and we’ll start getting used to each other in school.”

“You sound ridiculous.”

“Come on,” Victor whined. “It wouldn’t hurt to give it a try.”

“But wouldn’t it be awkward?” Yuuri pointed out. “I don’t really know the skaters.”

Victor waved a hand airily. “It’ll be fine. They’ve seen you around after skating practice anyway.”

Yuuri scowled. “That only makes it more awkward.”                                                                                  

“Nonsense,” Victor dismissed. “It’ll be fine.”

Yuuri was opening his mouth to protest again, when a knock rapped against his door. As one, Yuuri and Victor turned towards the sound. Yuuri’s mother pushed the door ajar and looked into the room. There was _katsu_ left from dinner, it seemed, and _would Victor like some before we put it in the fridge?_

“Your mom is amazing,” Victor declared reverentially, after Yuuri’s mother left to heat up the leftover pork cutlet.

“Come on,” Yuuri said, standing up. “Let’s get you fed.” He tried not to think of tomorrow.

=-=-=

Unfortunately, tomorrow came soon enough.

Yuuri stood in the middle of the cafeteria and eyed the skaters’ table with trepidation. Victor usually sat with the senior skaters, but he had not joined them yet. In fact, Victor did not seem to be anywhere in the cafeteria at all.

Yuuri swallowed and made his decision. His hands tightened on the sides of his lunch tray as he turned away and strode towards the table where he usually sat with the other dancers. “Hey,” he greeted, sliding into the seat beside Phichit.

Phichit bumped his shoulder in greeting. Across the table, Leo returned a cheery _hey_ of his own. Seung-il simply nodded in response, his attention on extracting his drink straw from its plastic sleeve.

“Where’s Guang Hong and Minami?” Yuuri asked, busying himself with the wrapping on his drink straw.

“They should be on their way. Guang Hong texted me.” Leo waved his cell phone briefly in the air, before he resumed typing on it. A reply to Guang Hong, Yuuri suspected, and likely something impossibly sweet: they were the dancers’ golden couple, after all.

“I hope you’ve all started practising for the senior’s recital,” Seung-il said, now that he had punched his straw into his juice carton.

The rest of them groaned. “Don’t remind me,” Yuuri moaned, putting his face into his hands, while Phichit patted his back sympathetically. He could hear Leo protesting, “But that’s two months away!”

“It’s precisely because it’s two months away,” Seung-il pointed out tartly. “Which is why we should have started practising already.” He glared.

Phichit huffed. “You’re a slave-driver.”

“I’m the club’s _president_ ,” Seung-il corrected, sitting up straighter in his seat. “And I want all of us to aim for gold – ”

“That speech again? Phichit’s right, you’re a slave-driver.” Guang Hong slid into the seat beside Leo, leaning over to give his boyfriend a quick peck on the cheek before settling back to unwrap his sandwich.

Seung-il spluttered.

“Seung-il, you’re not choking, are you?” Minami peered at Seung-il with wide eyes as he set his tray down on the table. He had dyed his hair again, Yuuri noted absently, a shock of red on his fringe where it was green only yesterday.

“Looks good,” Phichit remarked, tugging on his own fringe. He elbowed Yuuri, who nodded on reflex.

“Yeah, it does,” Yuuri added belatedly.

Minami’s eyes widened. A grin split his face into two as he pumped his fist in the air. “Yuuri noticed!”

“Ah, well…” Yuuri stammered.

“Hey, didn’t I call it first?” Phichit protested teasingly.

Minami stuck out his tongue. “But Yuuri is my favourite senior, because he’s way cooler.”

“Who’s way cooler?” came a familiar voice from behind him. Yuuri felt his stomach drop.

Steeling himself, he turned in his seat. “Victor!”

Victor grinned cheekily back at him.

At the same time, Minami announced proudly, “Yuuri’s way cooler, of course.”

Victor laughed gaily. “Can’t fault that,” he said lightly, placing a casual hand on Yuuri’s shoulder, “but Yuuri, aren’t you forgetting something today?”

Heat sparked in Yuuri’s cheeks. He forced a laugh. “Oops,” he offered weakly, setting his plastic fork back onto the tray with a casualness he did not feel. “Sorry guys,” he said apologetically as he rose. “I’ll see you at practice later.”

Seung-il raised a brow, while Leo and Gang Hong had matching expressions of confusion. Minami looked like he was about to protest. Only Phichit looked speculative.

“I said I’ll join Victor for lunch today to discuss the theatre project,” he added hastily. He threw a grimace in Phichit’s direction for good measure, raising his shoulders and shrugging slightly.

Phichit’s expression evened out. He waved, smiling broadly. “See you, Yuuri.”

The other dancers chorused their own _see-you’s_ as Yuuri gathered his lunch tray and trailed after Victor to the skaters’ table.

“Everyone, this is Yuuri,” Victor announced as they neared the table. He rested a hand on the small of Yuuri’s back. “Yuuri, meet everyone.”

“Hi,” Yuuri said awkwardly, shifting the weight of his lunch tray onto his left arm and freeing his right hand to offer a half-wave. He knew who they were, of course: Chris, Georgi, Mila, and the other Yuri in their school, Yuri Plisetsky, who was younger than all of them but who was good enough to skate with the rest of the seniors.

Yuuri knew who they were. He’d just never had to hold an actual conversation with any of them.

“Yuuri and I,” Victor announced grandly, “have been paired in Ciao Ciao’s little theatre project.”

“We know who he is,” Chris drawled. He gave Yuuri a flirty wink. “Victor tells us a lot about you.”

Yuuri swallowed. His mouth suddenly felt dry, his palms sweaty. He tried to focus instead on Victor’s hand where it rested still, a steady anchor on the small of his back. He wondered if Victor had left his hand there deliberately, in a tiny act of kindness.

He wondered if he was reading too much into it.

“Hey!” Victor protested, shoving Chris with his free hand. “Yuuri,” he said, turning his head towards Yuuri and guiding Yuuri forward. “Sit. Don’t listen to them. They’re talking nonsense.” He took Yuuri’s tray from him, and placed it on the table.

Yuuri waited until Victor sat next to Chris, before sliding into the empty seat on Victor’s other side.

“Don’t look so worried,” Mila coaxed teasingly as Yuuri picked at his fries accompanying his sandwich. “Georgi’s girlfriends always sit with us.”

Yuuri choked. Victor thumped him on his back.

“Shut up, Mila,” Georgi retorted, flicking an ice cube at her. She dodged.

“Stop making Yuuri uncomfortable,” Victor admonished. “I asked Yuuri to join us.”

“Girlfriends?” Yuuri asked, before he could think the better of it.

“Girlfrien _d_ ,” Georgi emphasized.

Everyone else at the table except Yuuri snorted.

Georgi glared, crossing his arms. “What Anya and I have is the real thing. You’re just jealous.”

“Keep telling yourself that,” Yuri said, rolling his eyes.

Chris propped an elbow on the table. “So, Yuuri,” he said, slanting a sideways glance in Yuuri’s direction, “Victor says that the two of you have been friends for years.”

Yuuri ate another fry, and resisted the urge to fidget. “Yeah, kind of.”

Mila leaned in eagerly. “Do you skate too? You should join us after practice the next time you drop by.”

“I don’t really know how to skate.”

“You don’t?” Mila tipped her head towards Victor, arching a brow.

“Sorry,” Yuuri added helplessly.

“I told you,” Victor said, slinging an arm around Yuuri’s shoulders and pulling Yuuri closer towards him, until Yuuri’s back was flush against his side. “Yuuri and I met in ballet class when we were kids.”

Instinctively, Yuuri leaned into the touch.

“And you never felt like skating at all?” Yuri demanded, a note of incredulity slipping into his voice.

“Yuri started with ballet,” Mila began, before making a face suddenly. “Yuri and Yuuri. This is going to get confusing. We should call one of you something else.”

Yuri bristled. “I was here first. If anything, he should be the one getting another name.”

Georgi shook his head. “Ah, youth.”

Yuri whipped his head around. “What’s that supposed to mean?” he demanded.

“Exactly what it meant,” Georgi smirked.

Victor cleared his throat pointedly.

“What Mila was trying to say,” Chris explained, “was that most of us started with ballet, or had to take classes along the way.”

“One of our coaches, Lilia, is a former ballerina,” Mila added. “She’s usually the one who choreographs our skates.”

“We just prefer the ice,” Chris finished, pursing his lips. “You should have Victor teach you. Or,” a coy smirk toyed on his lips, “one of us could teach you, I suppose.”

Yuuri shrugged uncomfortably. ”Don’t you all have the regional finals coming up?” Victor had spent many a ride in his car, talking Yuuri’s ear off about it. Victor, who was a long, lean line of warmth against Yuuri’s body where Yuuri was snuggled against him.

Suddenly aware of how they must look, Yuuri drew away carefully, repositioning his body so that they no longer touched.

“Next week,” Chris admitted. “But I’m sure Victor could make the time.”

“Especially when he’s not being an over-dramatic idiot,” Georgi interjected.

“And if he doesn’t, I would,” Chris finished with another wink.

Victor scowled. “You,” he said, pointing a finger at Chris, “stop flirting with everyone, especially Yuuri. And you,” he pointed at Georgi, “are in no position to say that I’m over-dramatic. Remind me again, who’s the one pretending to be an evil witch in his skate?”

Immediately, Georgi sputtered. He glared around the table as busied himself with his lunch, while Yuri and Chris snickered. Mila guffawed.

“But Victor,” Chris said, still smirking, when it became clear that Georgi was otherwise not going to reply. “Georgi’s right. Aren’t you the one skating to an aria? You know, that melodramatic, Italian piece we’ve all had to listen to for weeks?” He looked at Yuuri. “Has Victor let you listen to the music he’s using for finals?”

Yuuri shook his head mutely.

“I think my music conveys a sentiment anyone can identify with,” Victor defended hotly. “It speaks to the loneliness within all of us.”

“It’s overwrought,” Chris argued, “and that’s not even taking your choreography into account.”

“My choreography is _expressive_ ,” Victor hissed. “Anyway, you’re a fine one to talk, Mr I’m-too-sexy-for-the-ice.”

“Boys, be nice,” Mila cut in. “We don’t want to scare our guest away, do we?”

“It’s probably too late,” Yuri snorted, sounding almost bored. “He looks terrified. You’re all such idiots.”

Hastily, Yuuri plastered a smile on his face. “I’m alright.”

Mila waved him off. “See? You’ve scared our guest. Now, you have to make up, or else.”

Without missing a beat, Chris threw his arms around Victor, pulling him into a hug from the back. “I love you, you over-dramatic bastard.”

Victor turned his head and smacked a wet, sloppy kiss on Chris’ cheek. “And I still love you, even though you show me no respect, you asshole.”

Yuri made gagging noises, while Georgi choked on his drink and coughed.

Mila rolled her eyes. “Ignore them. They’re always like that,” she said to Yuuri.

Yuuri made himself look away from the shiny, mouth-shaped patch which Victor had left on Chris’ cheek. His stomach felt oddly leaden. “Oh,” he said weakly. “Always?”

“Always,” Mila confirmed cheerfully. “They would be adorable, if they didn’t do it all the time.”

“They’re disgusting,” Yuri complained to no one in particular.

“I’m surprised you’re all able to put up with it,” Yuuri joked, his voice calmer than he felt. He tried to ignore the way Victor was still leaning into Chris’ embrace.

Across the table, Yuri made another gagging noise. “How did we even get to this conversation?”

“Victor’s Yuuri and his not-skating,” Georgi supplied with a sigh.

“You really should teach him how to skate, Victor,” Mila chimed in.

“Or you could just join us on the ice the next time you come around to the rink, and I’ll show you,” Chris added, propping his chin on Victor’s shoulder.

Victor gave Chris a playful shove with his shoulder – but, Yuuri noticed, didn’t actually shake Chris off. “What did I say about not flirting?”

Yuuri shrugged uncomfortably. “I, um – ”

Mila picked up the packet of potato chips from her lunch tray. She ripped it open and helped herself to a couple before offering the now-open packet to Yuuri. “Want some?”

“Sure,” Yuuri said, reaching for one even though he no longer felt hungry, grateful for having something else to focus on. “Thanks,” he said, chewing slowly.

“So, Yuuri,” Chris drawled, finally letting his arms around Victor drop. He still kept his chin propped on Victor’s shoulder, however. “Victor says that you’re his partner for Ciao Ciao’s project.”

“Yeah, I am.” Yuuri made himself meet Chris’ gaze, and offered a casual smile. “Who did you get paired up with?”

“Otabek Altin.”

Across the table, Yuri paused in the middle of bringing his spoon to his mouth. “The guy who handles the sound for most of our school’s stage productions?” he interrupted.

“Yeah, that’s him,” Chris confirmed. He arched a brow. “You know him?”

Yuri shrugged. “I’ve seen him around,” he muttered, as his spoon resumed its original path. “He comes to school on a motorcycle, doesn’t he? That’s hard to miss.”

“I’ve worked with him on dance productions,” Yuuri offered. “He’s good.”

Chris shrugged. “We haven’t decided on our skit yet. Have you?”

“Yeah, we have,” Yuuri answered.

“But we’re not telling you,” Victor added, finally ducking out from under Chris’ chin. He scooted closer towards Yuuri on the bench, throwing his arm around Yuuri’s shoulders once again, this time conspiratorially. “We aren’t telling him, right?”

“We aren’t?” Yuuri blinked.

“We aren’t,” Victor confirmed.

“Come on,” said Chris, laughing.

“We’re surprising our audience. Telling you will spoil the surprise,” Victor smirked.

Chris snorted. “I don’t think it would surprise me even if you decided to play yourself on stage.”

“You’re just…” Victor began, before trailing off. Yuuri could feel the arm around him tense as Victor’s body went still. 

He ventured, hesitantly, “Victor…?”

 “Go on,” Chris urged at the same time, a teasing, challenging note in his voice.

Victor blinked. “Nothing,” he said, sticking his tongue out at Chris as his body relaxed.

“Hm,” Chris squinted suspiciously.

“You know, we could talk about something else, for those of us who aren’t taking World Theatre,” Mila suggested. “Like prom. I saw the student council putting up the posters in the corridors this morning.”

“I’m asking Anya,” Georgi said immediately.

The other skaters rolled their eyes.

“We know you are,” Yuri said snidely.

“It’s just whether she’ll say yes,” Mila added cheekily.

Georgi frowned.

“I saw the posters too,” Yuuri said quickly, to forestall any possible argument. “Feels a little too early for them, though.”

“I overheard some of the council members discuss it yesterday,” Chris offered. “Sounds like J. J.’s having them go all out for it.”

Yuri rolled his eyes. “J. J. just wants to rule the world.”

Victor laughed. “I wasn’t aware that our little Yurio felt so strongly about the council president.” His arm remained draped casually over Yuuri’s shoulders.

“That’s because J. J.’s obnoxious,” Yuri declared. “Beka doesn’t think very much of him either.” Then, he blinked. “Wait, ‘ _Yurio_ ’?” Yuri’s voice rose in a squawk.

At the same time, the other skaters turned as one to stare at Yuri. “‘Beka’?” Mila enquired archly, while the rest looked intrigued.

Yuri flushed. “No one.”

“I think he’s talking about Otabek,” Chris crowed.

Yuuri let the laughter at the table wash over him as he continued to pick at his food. He still wasn’t hungry, but Victor’s arm around him eased the ugly knot in his chest somewhat. He told himself that he didn’t mind it when Victor reached up with his other hand to ruffle Chris’ hair, and he was almost successful at ignoring the way in which Chris tugged playfully at Victor’s ponytail in retaliation.

Almost.

Yuuri smiled automatically when Mila cracked a joke. Afterwards, when he returned his tray, half of his food was untouched.

And that was Tuesday.

=-=-=

On Thursday, there was a text alert on his cell phone, a message from Victor: _I have something to show you!_

Yuuri, who was checking his cell phone between his morning classes, replied, _Now?_

 _Yes!!!_  

Yuuri bit back a smile as he counted the exclamation marks. _Class next,_ he pointed out. _Show it to me at lunch?_

Yuuri had lunched with the skaters on Wednesday too, after Victor had cornered him at the food line. He wouldn’t be surprised if Victor did the same today.

His cell phone buzzed in his hand. Yuuri glanced down, thumbing at the alert on the screen. _Can’t_ , Victor sent back. _Chris will be there._

Yuuri’s brows rose. _Is this about the play again?_

_Yes._

Yuuri shook his head. _After school._

 _:(_ came the reply, the combination of characters somehow managing to look forlorn on Yuuri’s screen.

Unable to resist any longer, a soft laugh escaped Yuuri’s lips. Still smiling, he tucked his cell phone back into his book bag, and headed for his next class.

=-=-=

“So, how was lunch at the other table today?” Phichit asked, when they stayed back after their session with Minako-sensei to stretch out.

Yuuri’s guess that morning had been right on the mark. Victor had barely waited for Yuuri to collect and pay for his food at the counter before corralling him towards where the skaters sat.

“It was alright,” Yuuri shrugged, bending his left knee and reaching for the toes on his right. “They’re still being friendly, I guess.”

“You’ve been lunching with the skaters a lot,” Phichit observed dryly. He grunted absently as he lowered himself into a split.

“Three days isn’t a lot,” Yuuri felt obliged to point out. In anyone else’s case, Yuuri would have conceded that the affair was starting to sound ridiculous. In Victor’s case, Yuuri still thought it ridiculous, but Victor was _Victor_ , and Yuuri couldn’t bring himself to say _no_. 

Phichit arched a brow. “Three days _in a row_.”

“You’ve seen how Victor is.” Yuuri sat up, straightening his left leg this time and folding his right, before reaching forward once more. “He keeps saying that he wants to use lunch to practise, but he also stops the moment one of the others joins us, because he wants to keep the final performance a surprise.”

Chris was the first one to join the table after them, that day. Victor had broken off mid-line, folding his copy of the draft script away and gesturing for Yuuri to do the same. A brief scuffle ensued when Chris tried to make a grab for Victor’s script anyway, ending only when Victor sat on Chris’ lap.

Yuuri tried not to think about how Victor had also remained on Chris’ lap for a good many minutes after, until Georgi joined the table too.

“Sometimes, it’s easier to just give him what he wants when he’s in a mood like this,” Yuuri finished, giving a helpless smile as he sat up again.

“Says you.” Phichit rolled out of his split to lie on his side, where he squinted at Yuuri meaningfully. “Are you sure you’re not using this as an excuse to sit with the skaters because you’re crushing on one of them?”

Yuuri laughed with a casualness that he did not feel. “What?”

Phichit waggled his eyebrows suggestively.

“Your obsession with finding out who my crush is, is bordering on disturbing,” Yuuri complained good-naturedly. “Not everything is about my crush.”

Phichit grinned cheekily. “It’s your fault in the first place for telling me that you had a crush, but not telling me on whom.”

“It was just that one time,” Yuuri protested. “And I was drunk. I take it back now. There’s no crush. There.”

Phichit stuck out his tongue. “Too late.” He paused. “Wait. You’re not crushing on Victor, are you?”

Yuuri choked. “No!”

“Alright, alright!” Phichit held his hands out, palms facing Yuuri in mock-surrender. “I’m sorry I even asked.” He hummed thoughtfully. “So, not on any of the skaters, huh?”

Yuuri rolled his eyes. “Just give it up.”

“Is it even someone I know?”

“It doesn’t matter anyway,” Yuuri said, reclining backwards on his elbows. “I’m pretty sure it’s a lost cause.”

“You could just give it up and date someone else,” Phichit suggested. “I can think of plenty of other people who’d be glad to date you.”

Yuuri snorted incredulously. “You’ve got to be joking. I can’t think of anyone.”

Phichit’s lips quirked. “I’d date you,” he offered, his eyes twinkling.

Yuuri gave him a light shove, even as his mouth cracked into a broad grin. “You don’t count,” he chuckled.

Phichit returned the shove, giggling. “Minami, then,” he shot back. “He’s definitely crushing on you.”

“Who’s crushing on Yuuri?” came a voice from the entrance of the dance studio, where Victor was leaning on his side in the open doorway.

“No one,” Yuuri denied hotly.

Victor cocked his head quizzically.

Yuuri darted a warning look in Phichit’s direction. “No one,” he repeated. “Phichit’s just messing around.”

“Hm,” said Victor. He remained silent for a beat, even though the expression on his face looked like he wanted to say something more. Then, he pushed off the doorframe and kicked off his shoes, before crossing the studio to where Yuuri and Phichit were sprawled. “Yuuri, I’m done for the day. Are you ready to head back?”

Phichit rose to his feet gracefully. “I’m done too,” he announced.

“I’d like to stay a little longer,” Yuuri said. “There are parts in my choreography that I need to figure out.”

“I’ll leave you to lock up the studio, then.” Phichit cracked his neck, before heading to the corner of the studio where the dancers usually left their bags. “Hey, Victor,” he said, scooping his bag off the floor and slinging its strap on his shoulder.

“Yeah?”

“Stop stealing Yuuri away from us at lunch.” He stuck out his tongue at the end, taking the sting out of his words.

Something flared in Yuuri’s chest, impish and wild. Impulsively, he said, “Victor will join our table tomorrow.” It came out more forcefully than he intended. “Won’t you, Victor?”

Victor laughed, seemingly startled. “Tomorrow,” he promised, sounding sheepish.

Phichit waved. “Alright. Then see you tomorrow, Yuuri, Victor.”

“See ya.”

“Yep, tomorrow,” Yuuri echoed, watching Phichit. Then, sighing, he sat up again and spread his legs in a straddle, as wide as they could go. He took a deep breath and leaned over, reaching for his right foot. Twenty seconds, counted slow, then onto the left foot. His hamstrings gave a twinge, but he ignored it, catching his hands on the arch of his foot as he counted another twenty. He sat up once more and, inhaling, he lowered himself again, this time reaching to the front.

The seconds lengthened. Dimly, he was aware of Victor standing by the closest wall, watching. Yuuri ignored him, focusing instead on keeping his back flat and bringing his stomach to the floor. Seven, eight, nine – he grunted softly as he walked his fingertips another half an inch forward on the floor.

Suddenly, a pair of hands rested on the small of his back. The palms warm through the thin cotton of Yuuri’s top.

“Breathe,” Victor murmured. It was the only warning Yuuri had, before Victor leaned in with his weight. Yuuri whimpered as he was pushed even deeper into the stretch. He gritted his teeth, breathing through pain until the tightness in his muscles eased. “There you go,” Victor encouraged, his tone soft.

Yuuri could feel the moment Victor shifted, exerting even more pressure as he bent forward, his body almost folding over Yuuri’s spine. Victor’s hair was loose. It spilled over his shoulders as he bowed over Yuuri, brushing lightly against Yuuri’s cheeks, tickling him. Through it all, Victor’s hands were warm and sure where they still rested against Yuuri’s back, coaxing Yuuri yet another couple of inches forward. 

There, in the quiet of the studio, pinned beneath Victor, surrounded by Victor, Yuuri found himself struck by the odd intimacy of the situation. His body tensed, this time for reasons completely unrelated to the stretch.

“… twenty-eight,” he counted aloud. “Twenty nine.” Victor was close enough that Yuuri could hear his breath, the soft _whoosh_ of an exhale. “Thirty.” He shifted his shoulders, and Victor gave his back a final, sharp push before lifting his weight away obligingly. Yuuri pushed himself back into a sitting position. He winced as he eased his legs together, the muscles on his inner thighs protesting. “Thanks for that.”

“No problem,” Victor replied, standing just to the side and hooking his thumbs in the front pockets of his jeans.

Yuuri brought the soles of his feet together in a classic butterfly pose, shaking out the residual soreness in his legs. He rolled his shoulders. Then, he planted both feet on the floor and started the wearisome task of heaving himself onto his feet.

Victor’s hand caught his wrist, giving it a sharp tug. Yuuri found himself hauled to his feet. He overbalanced, tipping face-first into Victor’s chest. Victor’s other arm came up, wrapping around Yuuri and catching him, steadying him.

Heat flared in Yuuri’s cheeks.

He allowed himself a moment – just a fleeting moment _–_ of allowing his nose to graze against Victor’s neck, where the collar of Victor’s t-shirt gave way to bare skin. He closed his eyes as he revelled in the illusory closeness, and the scent of _Victor_. Then, Yuuri pulled away.

“Sorry,” he muttered, tugging awkwardly at the hem of his shirt.

Victor shrugged. “Nah, fault’s mine.” He sounded unconcerned.

Yuuri offered him a tentative smile. “Just give me another fifteen minutes or so,” he said, moving to the mirrored wall, where he squared his shoulders and struck a pose.

Victor joined him a moment later, leaning against the ballet barre that ran along the length of the mirrored wall. He pulled his cell phone out from his pocket and fiddled with the screen, even as he darted brief, curious looks in Yuuri’s direction.

“What are you doing?” he asked eventually, as Yuuri placed his hands on his hips and arched his pelvis towards his reflection.

Yuuri blushed. “It’s for the senior recital.”

“I figured,” Victor said dryly. “That doesn’t tell me much, however.”

Yuuri let his hands fall loosely by his hips. With more machismo than he actually felt, he gave a small flick of his head, the tip of his tongue darting out to lick his lips. “It’s for my solo piece. It’ll be a bit… different, from what I’ve done before.” He frowned at his reflection.

To his side, Victor whistled.

“I look ridiculous. I _feel_ ridiculous.” Yuuri dropped out of position, instead crossing his arms self-consciously over his chest. “The story goes like this: A playboy comes to a certain town, and bewitches women left and right. He decides to pursue the most beautiful woman in town, but she isn’t swayed. Then, as they play the game of love, she finds it difficult to make the right choices and ends up falling for him. Then, he casts her aside, as though he is tired of her, and goes off to the next town.”

A small smile had crept onto Victor’s lips as he listened. When Yuuri drew to a close, he clapped. “I like it,” he said simply.

“Yeah?”

“It’s definitely different from what you normally do, but I don’t think your audience would object.”

Yuuri sighed. “I can’t help but feel that the role of the playboy just isn’t me, however.”

“You seem to be doing a pretty good job of it,” Victor smiled. “And,” he added with a wink, “I think you’re sexier than you know.”

A smile twitched across Yuuri’s lips. “You’re ridiculous.”

“Just play it like you’re trying to seduce the lucky girl you have a crush on.”

Yuuri froze. “I don’t have a crush on a girl,” he said. He wondered if Victor could hear the way his voice trembled on the last word. 

“Or the girl who has a crush on you?” Victor offered blithely. “You and Phichit were talking about that before I arrived, weren’t you?”

“We were not,” Yuuri said crossly. “I told you, Phichit was just talking nonsense.”

Victor’s eyes narrowed contemplatively. For a moment, Yuuri thought that Victor was going to press the issue. However, Victor shrugged, and gave a short laugh. “You’ll tell me if you started dating someone, won’t you?”

“There’s no girl,” Yuuri said firmly.

“Alright,” Victor said easily. He held his hands up, palms out, in a gesture of surrender, before turning his attention once again to his cell phone.

If he still shot the occasional glance at Yuuri – well, Yuuri did his best to ignore them.

Yuuri practised a few more poses, before giving up entirely. He stalked to where Victor stood, joining him in leaning his back against the barre and huffing his frustration.

Victor looked up. “You’ll get it.” He even sounded sympathetic. “I know you can, even if you don’t believe it.”

“Sure about that?”

“I’ve seen you,” Victor insisted.

Yuuri sighed. “Thanks, I think.” He laughed ruefully. “At least senior recital’s at least two months away.” He tipped his head back, letting his mind go blank as he studied the hairline cracks on the ceiling plaster. A memory occurred to him. “Hey,” he said, glancing at Victor once more, “didn’t you say that you wanted to show me something?”

Victor’s expression brightened. He flicked to the YouTube app on his cell phone, called up the search field. “Do you remember what Chris said at lunch on Tuesday?”

“Not really,” Yuuri confessed.

“He said something about me playing myself in the skit,” Victor replied, sounding distracted as he typed. “It made me think of something. About how we could break the fourth wall.” A list of search results populated the screen. Victor scanned them quickly, making a tiny noise of triumph as he thumbed the third option on the list. “Here,” he said, handing the cell phone to Yuuri. “I managed to rent the DVD for us yesterday evening too; we should watch it later. But [this video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TiNAYpVVr4) should do it too.”

“What am I looking at?” Yuuri asked while he waited for the video to load.

“It’s from a 1999 film adaptation of _A Midsummer Night’s Dream_. You know, the one with Christian Bale in it before he became Batman.”

The video loaded to show a stage. A man in pseudo-Roman armour was lying on his side, a sword sticking out from his chest, clearly dead. Another man in skirts and a long wig entered the stage, and curtseyed.

“It’s when Thisbe discovers that Pyramus is dead,” Victor explained. “Now, watch!”

“Asleep, my love?” exclaimed the actor on the screen in a terrible falsetto. “What, dead my dove?”

The audience who were watching the play in the movie tittered. In the studio, Yuuri cracked a grin. “This is terrible,” he said. “Is that how you plan on playing Thisbe too?”

“Oh!” cried Flute as he played Thisbe, collapsing by Pyramus’ side and placing his hands on the blade of the stage sword. “Oh, oh!”

“Victor…”

“Shhh!”

“Oh,” said Thisbe on the screen, softer now, but it wasn’t Thisbe any longer, no longer the ridiculous falsetto, but Flute, his voice male and trembling. “Oh, Pyramus, arise. Speak, speak.”

Yuuri’s eyes widened.  

“Dead,” Flute whispered over the fallen Pyramus, over the slain Bottom. “Dead.”

 His grip on Victor’s phone tightened, as he watched in rapt silence. Beside him, Victor had fallen equally still.

“Oh Sisters Three, come,” Flute implored. “Come to me, with hands as pale as milk,” he spoke, his voice rising in volume and strength, as he pulled Thisbe’s wig off his head with a determined motion, the illusion of stage now entirely gone. “Lay them in gore,” he ordered, his eyes fixed on, “since you have shore with shears his thread of silk.” His words shook as he reached down to trace a hand lovingly against Bottom’s face.

Yuuri watched, enraptured, as Flute took the stage sword and stabbed himself with it too. It was only when the final “Adieu” faded away, that Yuuri shakily let out the breath he hadn’t been aware until then that he was holding.

“Wow,” he managed.

“Yeah,” Victor agreed with a soft smile. “Think we could try for that?”

“Definitely,” Yuuri said. He would have said yes, even without Victor smiling at him like that, but the way Victor’s smile broadened, stretching wide and true and excited and _happy_ , made Yuuri’s heart beat just a little faster.

For a moment, Yuuri thought he understood how Flute felt, too.

=-=-=

The next day, Victor caught up with him again at the food queue in the cafeteria. This time, however, he followed Yuuri, lunch tray in his hands, to the dancers’ table.

The other dancers blinked at them with varying expressions of surprise as they drew near. Somehow, Yuuri managed not to stammer too much as he fumbled his way through the introductions. (Not that any were really needed. Most of the school recognised their star figure skater, Victor Nikiforov, on sight.)

“Hi,” Victor said, sliding gracefully into the seat beside Yuuri. His mouth quirked in a mischievous half-smirk, as he nodded to Phichit, who sat on Yuuri’s other side. “I did promise yesterday.”

Phichit laughed once, a delighted sound, as he inclined his head in return.

Around the table, Minami, Guang Hong and Leo looked star-struck. Only Seung-il looked unaffected by Victor’s presence, even bored.

Yuuri glanced down at his tray of food, biting his lip to keep his own smile in check. Victor sitting with him, at _his_ table, for the first time in all their history together, pleased him for reasons he couldn’t quite articulate. It had, in all likelihood, been sparked by Phichit’s off-hand suggestion yesterday in the studio, but _still_.

“So, Victor,” Phichit began, propping an elbow on the table and turning to catch Victor’s eye, “Yuuri says that you’re keeping your skit for Ciao Ciao’s class a secret. He wouldn’t even tell me what it’s about.”

Victor laughed. He bumped his shoulder against Yuuri’s, and winked cheekily when Yuuri looked up at him.

Grinning too, Yuuri gradually allowed himself to relax as lunch progressed, teasing Phichit and Victor whenever the opportunity in the conversation arose and getting teased in return. And if he happened to enjoy the way his and Victor’s arms and shoulders continued to brush against each other every time either of them moved – well, that was only for him to know.

=-=-=

Yuuri did not see much of Victor that weekend, or over the course of the week that followed. They rehearsed once in Victor’s room on Saturday after watching the DVD which Victor had rented, and another time on Monday evening in Yuuri’s room, but those were all. The regional figure skating finals were scheduled to take place over the next weekend, which meant that most of Victor’s spare time was spent at additional practice sessions on the rink. That included staying at the rink late into the night. They still went to school together every morning, but Yuuri took to going home on his own, hitching a ride with Phichit instead.

Lunch was the only other time in the day besides the morning when they spent any period of time together. By unspoken agreement, they continued to eat together, alternating between Victor’s table on one day and Yuuri’s table on the next. As the week progressed, Seung-il gradually warmed to Victor, while the other dancers became less tongue-tied. Yuuri thought the other skaters continued to remain friendly towards him, even calling out greetings at him in the corridors as they passed.

With Victor’s schedule as it was, Yuuri was not expecting to receive his text on Friday night. It read, simply, _I’m outside_.

“That’s just creepy,” Yuuri whispered a couple of minutes later as he unlocked his front door, ushering Victor in and gesturing at him to remove his shoes. “It’s like the sort of thing a serial killer sends to his victims to taunt them, before he creeps into their houses to kill them.”

“Sorry.” Victor’s voice was equally hushed as he toed off his shoes off.

“Come on,” said Yuuri softly, locking the door again and leading the way back to his room. “The rest of my family’s asleep, so be quiet.”

Victor followed him quietly up the stairs.

It was only when they were back in the safety of Yuuri’s room, bedroom door firmly shut against the rest of the house, that Yuuri dared to speak at his normal volume again. “What’s wrong?” he asked, flicking on the light switch and making them both flinch at the sudden brightness. “Isn’t your competition tomorrow? You should be in bed.” 

Victor blinked owlishly at him. “Nothing, really,” he shrugged. “I just felt like going for a walk.”

“And you decided to come here?” Yuuri asked, confused.

“I ended up on your street. So, I thought, _why not?_ ” Victor shrugged again.

Yuuri took a step back, taking in Victor fully. Victor looked as though he had dressed without much thought, Yuuri noted. Victor’s ponytail was messy, the strands rumpled, as though Victor had pulled his hair back hastily before heading out. The frayed, round-neck collar of a t-shirt peeked out from underneath Victor’s sports jacket. A pair of worn sweatpants, the kind Yuuri knew that Victor sometimes slept in, rounded off the look.

“Idiot,” he murmured. “You’ll catch a cold, going out like this.” Immediately, Victor looked contrite. Yuuri’s expression softened. “Couldn’t sleep?”

Victor tensed, his jaw clenching visibly. Then, abruptly, he relaxed, his shoulders slouching as he gave a sheepish laugh. “Yeah.”

“Nervous?” Yuuri asked sympathetically.

“Kinda.”

Yuuri smiled his understanding. He sat on his bed and patted the mattress beside him. “I thought that was usually my line.”

“I’m just better at hiding it than you,” Victor confessed with a rueful laugh. He unzipped his jacket and folded it over the back of Yuuri’s chair. Then, he joined Yuuri on the bed, lying back and stretching out his limbs. “It’s normally not as bad as this.”

Yuuri hummed. “Come on, move,” he urged, nudging at Victor’s shoulder until he turned to lie on his side. Gently, Yuuri eased the elastic tie off, releasing Victor’s hair from its ponytail. He combed his fingers through the strands, working them through the knots and tangles.

Victor made a contented noise. “I just keep thinking about how it’s my last skate before college, you know?” he murmured, his voice muffled from where his face was pressed against into one of Yuuri’s pillows. “And sure, my scholarship application seems to be going pretty well so far, but what if I make a mess of things tomorrow?”

 Yuuri buried his hand in the hair above Victor’s nape, the pads of his fingertips rubbing soothing circles on Victor’s scalp. From his vantage point, Yuuri could see the moment when Victor’s eyelids fluttered shut.

“None of the other skaters will understand,” Victor continued. Slurred, really, as he leaned into Yuuri’s touch.

“Go to sleep, Victor,” Yuuri said softly, the words fond even to his ears.

Victor’s eyes blinked open. He rolled until he was lying on his other side, dislodging Yuuri’s hand in the process. The tip of his nose brushing against Yuuri’s thigh.  “But you understand, Yuuri, don’t you?” he asked, his tone oddly urgent. “You understand me.”

“Yeah, I do,” Yuuri whispered. He replaced his hand on the back of Victor’s skull, where he resumed petting him. “Go to sleep, Victor,” he repeated gently.

Victor sighed, his eyes slipping shut once more. “Hey, Yuuri,” he said, his voice drowsy, “do you mind if I sleep here tonight?” Half-asleep, he nuzzled against Yuuri’s thigh. “It’ll be just like our sleepovers when we were kids.”

Yuuri’s hand stilled.

Victor gave a whimper of protest, shifting his head to butt against Yuuri’s fingers.

Yuuri hesitated, biting his lip. “Alright,” he breathed, squeezing his eyes shut. In the quiet of the bedroom, his muted concession echoed in his ears, loud, portentous. With a sigh, Yuuri stroked his hands through Victor’s hair a final time. Then, he opened his eyes again and stood up, fumbling for the light switch. The room plunged into comforting darkness once more.

Carefully, Yuuri climbed back onto the mattress, keeping his movements as silent and unobtrusive as possible to avoid jostling his bed-mate. He drew the covers up over the both of them, before settling on his side. Almost immediately, a cold nose brushed against his nape, making him jump.

“Sorry,” Victor mumbled, not sounding sorry at all.

“Keep to your side of the bed,” Yuuri groused without heat.

“Mmm, but you’re warm,” Victor protested, even as he rolled obligingly away.

They lay in silence for a while. Yuuri stared blankly at the wall of his bedroom, wide awake now even though he had been almost asleep when Victor texted him. Speaking of whom – “Victor?”

“Mm?”

“What are you skating to tomorrow? You never told me.”

“That’s ’coz ’m tryin’ to keep it a surprise,” Victor mumbled.

“Chris said something about an aria last week,” Yuuri ventured.

“Stupid Chris.”

“So what’s it about?” Yuuri pressed. In the stillness of the night, so close to Victor but not touching him, it suddenly seemed important to Yuuri that he knew.

There was an audible sigh and the rustling of bedclothes. For a while, Yuuri thought that Victor had fallen asleep. Then, “It’s about someone who thinks that they are alone.”

“Oh,” said Yuuri, his voice hushed. “That’s sad.”

“Mm,” Victor slurred, the words almost indistinct now. “But ’least I have you.”

Yuuri blinked, suddenly wide awake. “Victor?”

There was no response.

Yuuri sighed. “Good night, Victor.”

Silence.

Yuuri remained curled on his side, motionless, as he listened to Victor’s breaths as they evened out. Slowly, so slowly that he barely noticed it, his eyelids began to feel heavy once more. Sleep crept in, and Yuuri gave himself over to inevitability.

=-=-=

Victor was gone the next morning when Yuuri awoke, the sheets on his side of his bed rumpled but cold.

Yuuri sat up blearily. That was when he noticed that the LED light on his cell phone was flashing. He fumbled for his phone, scooping it clumsily off the nightstand where he had left it to charge.

He had two texts from Victor. The first read, _Had to dash, sorry. :(_

 _Thanks!_ the second read simply.

There was no need for Victor to ask whether Yuuri would be at the competition that afternoon. They both already knew.

 _Good luck! :)_ , Yuuri typed back, before tossing his phone to the side and collapsing back onto the bed. By his own count, he had another two more hours for a lie-in before he would have to leave the house.

=-=-=

The bleachers were packed. Yuuri sat, hunched, sandwiched between Phichit on his left and someone he thought he recognised from the school’s band on his right, all of them with barely enough space for their elbows and knees. Not that Yuuri minded, or even noticed; his attention remained fixed on the rink below.

On the ice, Yurio gave a final bow to the audience before skating back to the kiss-and-cry. Yuuri applauded, grinning. He wouldn’t be surprised if Yurio took a medal.  

“He’s good,” Phichit murmured.

Two rows in front of them, Otabek leapt suddenly to his feet as he gave a whoop. For a moment, Yuuri thought he saw Yurio falter, his cheeks visibly pink even from that distance as he glanced up at the bleachers where Otabek was.

Yuuri blinked, his attention caught momentarily by the intriguing exchange which he had observed. He nudged Phichit, ready to comment on it, when a sudden increase in the volume of the crowd’s cheers distracted him once again. It was Victor’s turn.

Yurio and Otabek forgotten, Yuuri watched intently as Victor gave his coaches a final hug for luck at the kiss-and-cry, before he skated out to the centre of the rink. There, he stopped and craned his neck, visibly scanning the audience, as though searching for something, or someone.

For a moment, Yuuri would have sworn that Victor’s gaze had paused in his direction.

Suddenly, Victor smiled. He turned on a half-pivot to face the judges and gave his shoulders a shake before settling into his starting position, his head bowed.

Victor’s music began to play over the sound system. On the ice, Victor raised his head slowly. He held his arm out imploringly to an invisible partner, even as he skated out of his partner’s reach. Chris had been right, that first lunch: Victor’s skate was overwrought. But it also made Yuuri’s breath catch in his throat, and his chest clench in understanding, despite the fact that he didn’t understand the words of the aria. It was plea to be held, for a lover to stay close and to never go away, even as the lover remained elusive in the distance, and _oh_ , Yuuri’s heart _ached_.

Yuuri watched, captivated, as Victor leapt into the air – a quadruple flip, his brain supplied numbly, and another quad jump in quick succession and _God, Victor was magnificent_ – before skating to a flawless finish, his hands crossed before his chest and his gaze cast heavenward as he finally spun to a dramatic stop. Abruptly, it was over.

Yuuri was not the first to lead the standing ovation, but he wasn’t far behind.

“Wow,” Phichit breathed beside him.

“Yeah,” Yuuri agreed, clapping even harder.

On the rink, Victor did a lazy loop on the ice, waving at the audience. He came to a stop in front of the section where Yuuri sat, and looked up. This time, there was no doubt that their gazes met. Victor grinned at him, pumping his fist into the air. Yuuri grinned right back, wide enough that his cheeks hurt. He raised his hands to either side of his mouth and whooped an appreciative cat-call.

Victor winked and gave another wave, before turning to skate back to the kiss-and-cry.

Yuuri waited nervously as the judges tallied Victor’s score. It turned out that he needn’t have worried.

Afterwards, the crowd spilled towards the holding area to the side of the kiss-and-cry, while the winners skated back towards the bleachers. Victor was one of the first to step off the ice, his gold medal gleaming where it hung from his neck. He braced a hand on the half-wall surrounding the rink, as his other hand fitted his blade guards back onto his skates.

That was where Yuuri met him.

Victor’s body was warm and solid as he enveloped Yuuri in a tight hug. Yuuri wrapped his arms around Victor’s waist and squeezed right back. Victor’s skin was damp, sweat soaking through the front of his costume, but Yuuri didn’t care. He buried his nose into the crook of Victor’s neck and just _breathed_. Victor, Yuuri decided, smelled amazing.

“I did it,” Victor whispered, his cheek brushing against Yuuri’s, and his lips so close that they almost brushed against the sensitive shell of Yuuri’s ear as he spoke.

“You did it,” Yuuri shivered. Unthinkingly, he turned his head, nuzzling into Victor’s hair where it draped over his shoulder. Victor was here and in his arms and holding Yuuri close and laughing, immediate and real in a way that made Yuuri feel special and treasured and _alive_ , and Yuuri thought, _I could remain like this forever_. 

Until, all of a sudden, Victor let him go.

Yuuri blinked, unable to help the choked, wounded sound that tore from his throat. The sound was lost, however, in the clamour of the crowd, and Yuuri stared dumbly while Victor turned to greet the other skaters from their school as they came up to congratulate him. He watched, uncomprehending, as Victor reached out to pull Chris into a one-armed embrace, planting a long kiss on the side of Chris’ face and receiving two from Chris in return, one on either cheek. 

He continued to look on as the coaches, Yakov and Lilia, waded into the fray, herding the skaters back to, presumably, the locker room.

Gradually, he became aware of Phichit’s hand on his elbow.

“Come on,” Phichit said softly, tugging him gently away.

They were silent as they got into Phichit’s car. 

“Food?” Phichit asked, when he’d pulled out of the parking lot.

“Yeah, sure. Why not,” responded Yuuri absently as he fiddled with the radio dial on the dashboard. Nothing seemed to suit his mood.

Wordlessly, Phichit reached over and pressed a couple of buttons.

Yuuri sat back into his seat as the first strains of music washed over him. The music sounded familiar. “ _Shall We Dance?_ ”

“Yeah.” Phichit glanced at him briefly before turning his attention back to the road. “From _The King and the Dancer_. I think I may use it for my solo at the recital.”

“Hm.”

By unspoken agreement, they went back to Phichit’s house. They stopped by the kitchen long enough for Phichit to pick up some food – a large bag of chips, a half-eaten tub of dip, a full pint of ice cream – before heading to Phichit’s room.

It was different from Victor’s, Yuuri reflected absently as he pulled the bag of chips open. There were the obvious dissimilarities, of course: the colours of the sheets on the bed, the posters for musicals on the wall, the conspicuous absence of Makkachin from the times Victor did manage to sneak his dog upstairs, notwithstanding his parents’ protests. But it was more than that. Phichit’s room didn’t smell of _Victor_.

“Pick something,” Phichit urged, flipping his laptop open and pulling up the folder that contained his (frankly rather impressive) collection of musicals.

Yuuri watched him scroll down the list absently. “You pick,” he shrugged. “I don’t really mind.”

A moment later, the opening music of _The King and The Dancer_ began to play.

Yuuri’s brow rose. “Really?”

“Shut up,” Phichit grinned. “No one’s allowed to hate this musical.” He grabbed the pillows from his bed. Yuuri joined Phichit in sprawling on the giant rug that covered most of Phichit’s bedroom floor.

A few scenes in, and Yuuri had to concede that the musical helped. He was familiar enough with the story that he didn’t need to pay too much attention to it, but it was still engaging enough that he even forgot, just for a moment, the whole sorry mess that was his love life.

The musical helped, right until his cell phone buzzed. Instinctively, Yuuri fumbled for his phone, unlocking its display and thumbing the text alert without really reading it. A picture of the skating team filled the screen and Yuuri, against his better judgment, looked at it, really _looked_ at it.

 Memory rushed back like a kick to the chest.

The skating team was at a McDonald’s, he realised, a distant part of his brain recognising the distinctive golden arches emblazoned on the red French fry packets and the printed paper cups. He took in their smiles, the laughing faces which they made at the camera.

Mostly, however, Yuuri’s eyes lingered on Victor. Victor looked happy – positively delighted, in fact – as he stood in the centre of the group, next to Chris. He had thrown an arm around Chris’ shoulders, and had Chris’ arm wrapped around his in turn. They were both toasting the camera with their drink cups, and Yuuri already knew without even thinking about it that Victor’s contained fizzy grape instead of Coke. Chris was making a kiss-y face at the cameraman. And Victor –

Victor was looking up at Chris, laughing at something Chris had apparently said, or maybe something Chris had done. The camera had caught him mid-laugh, his head tipped back in his mirth. Victor looked happy, positively delighted, and his expression was more fond than Yuuri had ever seen it.

Yuuri felt some unpleasant twist in his gut.

 _Everyone’s asking after you_ , Victor had texted underneath that photograph. _You should have stayed back and come._

Yuuri grimaced. _There was something else_ , Yuuri lied. _Sorry_ , he added as an afterthought, even though he didn’t mean it at all.

He tossed his phone back onto the rug with a sigh, closing his eyes briefly. When he opened his eyes again, he found Phichit staring at him strangely. Wordlessly, Phichit handed him the half-eaten pint of ice cream and the spoon they had been sharing. Yuuri took them both gratefully and dug in.

“So, Victor, huh?” Phichit said, when it became clear that Yuuri was not going to speak.

“Huh?” Yuuri replied intelligently around his latest mouthful of Ben & Jerry’s.

“Your crush. He’s Victor, isn’t he?”

Yuuri placed the spoon back into the tub of ice cream and set the tub aside. Both hands now free, he traced his fingers idly along the woven pattern of the rug, if only to give himself something to do, and to avoid Phichit’s sympathetic gaze. “Yeah,” he muttered.

Phichit laughed shortly. “Just so you know, I’m actually kinda mad at you for not telling me earlier. And for lying to me when I asked.”

“Sorry,” Yuuri mumbled. This time, he even meant it.

For a while, they were both silent. On the screen, the king was speechless as Arthur finally confessed that he was from the future.

In the moment of quiet, Yuuri heard Phichit draw in a breath.

“To be honest,” Phichit said, his tone conversational, “I also kinda already knew.”

Yuuri’s head jerked up. “What?”

Phichit shrugged. He looked pensive. “It was just the way you two were around each other, you know?”

Yuuri froze. “No, I don’t, actually,” he retorted, before he could think the better of it. “Sorry,” he said again, because Phichit hadn’t done anything to deserve his irritation.

Phichit waved him off. “You would look at him when you thought he wasn’t looking.” He snorted. “It got pretty obvious after Victor started to have lunch with us.”

 Yuuri buried his head in his arms. “I’m pathetic, aren’t I?” he asked rhetorically.

“You just haven’t seen the way Victor looks at you.”

“You’ve got to be kidding,” Yuuri muttered sullenly into his arms.

“You just haven’t noticed it,” Phichit insisted. “Just like how you don’t seem to notice the way Victor treats you as more than a friend.”

“That’s because we’re best friends,” Yuuri corrected, finally glancing up. “We’ve known each other for more than half our lives.”

Phichit huffed. “I still think that Victor likes you as more than a friend too. He just hasn’t realised it about himself yet.”

Yuuri rolled his eyes. “I’m pretty sure you’re reading too much into whatever it is that you’re seeing.”

For a moment, Phichit looked as though he might argue with him. Then, he appeared to think the better of it, his mouth snapping shut as he looked away at the screen. For a while, they watched in uncomfortable silence as the king asked Arthur to teach him how to dance.

“Hey, Yuuri,” Phichit said suddenly, his expression pensive. “Are you in love with Victor?”

“I –“ Yuuri hesitated. Was he? He had known Victor for such a part of his life that it was almost difficult to tell where their friendship ended and his stupid crush began. It had always been Victor and him: Victor, who was possibly the most beautiful person whom Yuuri knew, with a heart to match. Victor who made him smile even when he was sad, and who always got them both into trouble with one of his crazy ideas even as his antics made Yuuri laugh.

A soft smile crept onto his lips. He was only distantly aware of Phichit watching him intently.

Yes, he supposed he loved Victor. If he was honest with himself, he supposed he had loved Victor even when they were children, from the moment Victor had approached him during that fateful ballet class and had made him forget to feel self-conscious. Growing up, Yuuri had wanted nothing more than to be around Victor for as long as he could, the two of them taking turns after school to hang out in each other’s rooms and to talk about everything and nothing in particular, until they inevitably fell asleep, tangled with one another.

Only, at some point, wanting to be around Victor meant wanting to kiss Victor too, to tilt his head just so and to brush his lips against Victor’s. Victor would smirk at him before returning the kiss, a butterfly press of lips, casual and affectionate in a way which would make everything in Yuuri’s world seem right.

It would also never happen.

“I don’t know,” Yuuri finished wearily. “Maybe.” He scrubbed his hand over his face. “Anyway, it’s no use. Victor doesn’t like me _that way_. I’m just scared that this will mess up our friendship.”

“Then, Yuuri,” Phichit asked, his tone growing urgent, “what are you going to do?” When Yuuri remained silently, he elbowed him gently in the ribs. “Victor’s definitely going to get his skating scholarship after today. Are you still going to the Boston Conservatory just to be with him?” His voice was infinitely kind.

“I don’t know,” Yuuri finally confessed. “I really don’t.” His fists clenched. “I don’t know if I can stop myself from feeling this way. I don’t even know if I really want to.” Victor and him, Northeastern University and the Boston Conservatory, any spare time they had still spent together. He wanted that. But he was starting to realise that there’d be other people besides them too: boys, girls, anyone Victor might finally date. Victor would find someone eventually – he always did – and Yuuri…

Yuuri would remain the loyal best friend, the sounding board for Victor’s conquests and the one to wipe away Victor’s tears when things ended. He’d watch Victor wrap himself around someone else, while all the time silently wishing that he were in their place instead. He’d smile when Victor would look at him, unable to avert his gaze, because it was _Victor_.

His shoulders slumped. “But I don’t want to lose Victor to this. Victor’s too important.” His words sounded lost to his ears. “What would you do in my place?”

The question seemed to startle Phichit. He blinked and gave a shaky laugh. “Try to give it up, I suppose. Even if I don’t think I can.” He sighed, holding Yuuri’s gaze. “If the friendship was that important to me, I’d try to distance myself from him, until I no longer felt that way.”

Yuuri pursed his lips. “Does that actually work?”

“Maybe not all the time,” Phichit admitted, his voice soft with sympathy, “but not having to think about it all the time would help.” He smiled, and it struck Yuuri then, all of a sudden, that Phichit looked inexplicably sad.

“Phichit,” he started, “do you –”

 _– have a crush on someone too_ , was what he wanted to say. However, his phone buzzed again and, instinctively, Yuuri glanced down at it, distracted.

 _We’re getting ice cream now_ , Victor had texted. _Sure you can’t come out to meet us?_

With a burst of resolve, Yuuri flicked the window on the screen shut without dwelling on the message or typing a reply. When he looked up again, Phichit’s expression was as cheerful as it always was, and Yuuri forgot what it was that he had wanted to ask.

=-=-=

It turned out easier than Yuuri suspected, avoiding Victor.

In the week that followed, he took to waking up half an hour earlier each morning, to cycle to school. He avoided the cafeteria at lunchtime, hiding away in the dance studio, or persuading Phichit to join him out by the school fields. (The latter meant that the other dancers would inevitably tag along too, which was nice, all things considered.) In the evenings, he cycled home again, or caught a ride back with Phichit instead, his bicycle folded away and crammed in the back of Phichit’s old car.

 _:(_ , Victor had sent the first few days, each time Yuuri put off grabbing a ride with him. Each time, Yuuri was appropriately apologetic in his texts. _Extra practice for the recital_ , he sent back, and, _You know how it is._ With the senior’s dance recital less than two months away now, it wasn’t even really a lie.

Mostly, however, it helped that Yuuri and Victor didn’t share any other classes apart from theatre class. It meant that, most of the time, the worst which Yuuri had to worry about was ducking out of Victor’s way in the corridors, before Victor could notice him.

From the corner of his eye, Yuuri spied the familiar flash of Victor’s letter jacket. He dodged into the nearest classroom just as Victor finished rounding into the corridor, and waited until Victor had safely passed. Only then did he emerge once more, heading for the row of lockers outside.

Something white fluttered out of his locker when he swung the metal door open. It was a piece of paper, flimsy, ruled, clearly torn out from a spiral notebook. He bent down and picked it up, squinting at it.

 _Are you angry with me????_ the note demanded in Victor’s messily exuberant handwriting. A string of sad faces trailed the line of question marks.

Yuuri stared at the note for entirely too long. Now that he held the paper in his hand, he could see where its corners had begun to unravel, where its edges no longer crisp and sharp, but soft and worn. Carefully, he folded the note and tucked it away in his wallet.

“No daydreaming!” Minami’s cheerful voice exclaimed from behind him. Yuuri glanced up, smile automatically in place as Phichit, Leo and Guang Hong ambled up too.

“Come on,” Leo said, as they clustered around Yuuri’s locker. “I think Seung-il will have a fit if we’re late for practice today.”

“He’s taking the recital way too seriously,” Guang Hong added, making a face.

The others laughed, and Yuuri joined in. “Gimme a sec,” he said, turning back to his locker to grab the textbooks he’d need for the day’s homework and stuffing the books into his bag. He bumped the metal door shut again with his hip and spun the combination lock. “Let’s go.”

They trooped down the corridor as Minami began to recount a funny story he had overheard in class, something about a basket of laundry and a cat. Yuuri listened with half an ear, his mind too preoccupied with the note that sat heavily in his wallet.

A part of him, the ridiculous part that still insisted on nursing a crush on Victor despite Yuuri’s best efforts otherwise, was glad that Victor had noticed his absence. The rest of him, however, raced to think of an appropriate excuse, one he could use to keep Victor at bay for a while more, and he barely noticed when Phichit fell into step beside him. Victor could be stubborn once he got his mind fixed on having his way. Yuuri would probably have to come up with something more than just additional dance practice –

“Victor came looking for you at lunch today,” Phichit murmured in an undertone. When Yuuri glanced up sharply, he continued, “I told him I didn’t know where you were, of course.”

Yuuri had spent lunch that day napping in the dance studio. He smiled his thanks now. “I owe you one,” he said, heartfelt.

Phichit’s lips quirked. “Anytime.” He shrugged, cocking his head at an angle, his gaze inquisitive. “But I won’t be surprised if he comes round the dance studio next,” he warned. “You should think about that.”

Yuuri sighed. “Don’t I know it,” he muttered just as they arrived at the dance studio, where Seung-il was indeed already waiting.

The problem, Yuuri reflected as he began to warm up in his usual corner of the studio, was that he was pretty sure Victor didn’t feel about him like he the way he felt about Victor. He was pretty sure that his touch did not set Victor’s heart aflutter or make Victor’s entire body sing or sharpen Victor’s world in hyper-colour or all the other ridiculous clichés. He was also pretty sure that Victor’s gut did twist up every time Yuuri draped an arm around someone else that wasn’t him, wishing desperately to be in that someone else’s place.

He was definitely sure that Victor did not spend his days counting down the seconds to the next accidental brush, the next casual touch, torn between hoping that Yuuri would touch him but fearing that he would lose control and do something stupid, the moment Yuuri _did_ touch him. Something stupid, like turning around and kissing him and maybe saying, _I love you_.

Yuuri needed Victor because being with Victor made Yuuri feel happy, feel alive, feel as though he could conquer _anything_.

Victor only wanted Yuuri’s company as a friend.

Staying away from Victor hurt, but Yuuri was reasonably certain that it would be worse if Victor knew how Yuuri felt. Victor, being Victor, would probably feel _sorry_ for Yuuri. Yuuri would be just another one in a long line of people in their school who nursed a crush on Victor. Victor would be sympathetic but unable to reciprocate. He would grow more careful of the way he acted around Yuuri, for fear of leading Yuuri on, because Victor was noble like that. Their friendship would grow awkward, eventually crumbling under the strain.

And Yuuri couldn’t have that.

Sighing, he turned to face the mirrored wall, and began to run through the motions of his solo piece. At least he still had _that_ to distract him from Victor, for all that it frustrated him.

There was still something missing in his performance, he thought as he moved into the second half of the dance, his eyes narrowing at his reflection. The motivations of the playboy he was dancing continued to elude him, and without that understanding, it was impossible for him to integrate the playboy’s emotions into his performance. Perhaps it was simply just as he had told Victor just two weeks ago – and oh, how long ago those two weeks now seemed – that the role of the playboy just wasn’t him.

Yuuri halted mid-motion with a grimace. The way things were progressing, it was going to be a long practice. With another sigh, he took up his starting position again.

For a moment, he allowed his mind to drift to the lady instead. He tried to imagine what it would be like, to be the most beautiful woman in the town. He preferred to think that she hadn’t been a passive victim of the visiting playboy’s charms. Perhaps it was a conscious decision to fall in love. Perhaps she had even set out deliberately to seduce him, confident of her own charms, before finally casting him aside when she had grown tired of him.

He tried to imagine what it would be like if _he_ – plain ol’ boring Yuuri Katsuki – had that sort of charm at his disposal. Briefly, he entertained the fantasy of catching Victor’s eye, of keeping his interest. They’d be in the classroom, in the cafeteria, at the skating rink, at prom, and Victor would notice _him_ , would smile at him and laugh and draw him near. He wouldn’t grow bored of Victor, however; wouldn’t toss Victor away.

As though observing himself from afar, Yuuri watched as his reflection caressed his body sensually with his hands. His reflection tilted his head flirtatiously and gave a wink.

Suddenly, Yuuri understood.

“Minako-sensei,” he declared, turning towards her as she came up to check on his progress, “I want you to teach me how to move in feminine ways.”

“Hah?” she exclaimed, her expression bewildered. But Yuuri insisted, and that evening, while they both stayed on in the dance studio, she did.

=-=-=

Yuuri didn’t actually have dance practice on Saturday mornings. However, now that he finally had the crux of his solo piece at the recital all figured out, he was keen to get as much extra practice as he could before he’d forget.

The members of the dance club were allowed to use the school studio on the weekends for personal practice. Most of them, however, typically only came by in the afternoons, if they were dropping in at all. As such, Yuuri wasn’t expecting company that morning as he practised.

The volume of the music meant that he didn’t hear Victor come in. He only realised that he had a visitor when, from the corner of his eye, he caught Victor’s reflection in the mirror. And when he did, he jumped.

Their eyes met in the mirror. “Don’t let me interrupt you,” Victor said, gesturing vaguely from where he was leaning against the wall behind in a casual slouch. His expression was mild.

Yuuri swallowed. With great effort, he kept himself from turning around to confront Victor immediately, and forced himself to carry on through the last one minute of the music instead. All the while, he was conscious of the weight of Victor’s gaze, where it rested heavily on his back, between his shoulder blades. 

Finally, the music finished with a flourish of notes. Yuuri held the last pose for another breath. Then, he let his head drop. His eyes remained firmly trained on his feet as he strode to where he had left his bag, to turn off the music. That done, he took a deep breath, gathering what shreds of calm he still had left. Then, and only then, did he look up in Victor’s direction.

Victor was still staring at Yuuri’s previous spot in front of the mirrored wall. He turned his head now to meet Yuuri’s gaze. His expression was contemplative. “Feels different from the last time I watched it,” he offered finally.

“I was trying out something new,” Yuuri admitted. 

“Whatever it was, I like this one better.”

“You do?”

“Yeah. It feels like you’ve made the music yours, somehow. It’s now even more… seductive.”

Yuuri’s cheeks warmed. “It’s still at a very rough stage,” he demurred. “I’ll need to keep working on it before the recital.”

Victor hummed. “Northeastern called my parents the other day. They’re giving me the scholarship to skate.”

Yuuri forced a smile. “Congratulations,” he said.

“Just like we planned,” Victor nodded. His own smile looked strained. “How’s the application with the Conservatory?”

“Haven’t heard from them yet.”

“They’ll take you in.”

“You don’t know that.”

“You’re too good for them not to.”

“You don’t know that,” Yuuri repeated dully. He bit his lip, studying his toes. “Anyway, it’s not the end of the world if they don’t. There are other places for dance.”

There was an awkward pause while Yuuri fidgeted.

Finally, Victor said hesitantly, “Yuuri, have I done something to make you angry with me?”

“No!” Yuuri exclaimed immediately, and more vehemently than he had intended. “No,” he repeated, a little more calmly. “Don’t be silly. Of course not.”

“Because you _would_ tell me, wouldn’t you?” Victor’s gaze was searching.

Yuuri forced himself to not look away. “Yeah,” he said. “I would. You know that.”                

“Then why are you avoiding me?”

“I’m not avoiding you.” Yuuri was proud of the way his voice did not shake.

Victor was frowning.

“I told you, I just needed more practice for the recital. Like now.” Yuuri waved his hand vaguely at their surroundings.

Victor still looked disbelieving. “You’re not…” he began, before pausing, as though a thought had just struck him. “You’ve not started seeing someone new, have you?” A grimace crossed his face as he said it, as though he unconsciously found the idea distasteful.

Yuuri blinked. He wondered if he had imagined that fleeting expression. “Huh?” he asked intelligently.

“Dating someone,” Victor clarified in the growing silence. “Because I still remember what Phichit was saying the last time I was here. And I know what it’s like when you start dating someone, and you’re suddenly unable to think of anyone else but that person, and you’re spending all of your time with that person…”

“Victor,” Yuuri cut in. “You’re rambling.” He refrained from pointing out how ridiculous Victor was being. Or that Victor still hung out with him anyway even when Victor found someone new to date, although it was mostly to talk to Yuuri about how awesome his new date was. (Sometimes, Yuuri rather wished that Victor wouldn’t.) Yuuri liked to think that he would have done the same with Victor, if he had found someone new to date. If he could just forget his stupid crush on Victor and move on.

On the other side of the studio, Victor shut his mouth abruptly. “You’re not seeing someone,” he stated.

“No, I’m not,” Yuuri confirmed. He wondered if Victor could hear the bitterness in his voice, at the sheer irony of it all. “Can we change the topic already? I thought we established that Phichit didn’t mean anything by it the last time. I’m starting to get a feeling of déjà vu,” he complained.

“Sorry,” Victor sighed. He even sounded contrite.  

“What about you? Are you dating Chris?” Yuuri asked, before he could think too much about it. Now was as a time as any, after all.

“What?” Victor sounded incredulous. It was, in some ways, reassuring. “Whatever gave you the impression?”

“Just… seeing the way you two hang out, especially after you made me sit with you at lunch.” Yuuri shrugged with a nonchalance he did not feel.

“Chris has a boyfriend who’s in college already,” Victor replied, and Yuuri let out a breath he had not known until then that he had been holding. “We’re just very good friends,” Victor continued, before adding hastily, “Still can’t beat our friendship, of course. There’s no need for you to be jealous.” He finished with a teasing grin.

Yuuri forced a laugh. “Who’s jealous?” he shot back lightly. “Don’t be stupid.”

They lapsed again into silence.

“So,” Victor spoke suddenly, “why have you been avoiding me?”

“I told you already, I haven’t been avoiding you,” Yuuri retorted sharply.

Victor crossed his arms over his chest. “Fine. Then have you forgotten about our theatre project?” When Yuuri did not respond, he continued, a hint of sarcasm creeping into his voice. “You know, the other thing which you’re supposed to be rehearsing, with me.”

“Oops,” Yuuri lied. He hadn’t, but he’d figured that they could do a run-through the day before their performance. It wouldn’t be ideal, but it was the best compromise he could think of between not messing up his grade and not messing up his relationship with Victor. He hadn’t expected Victor to be quite so enthusiastic about it – but, in hindsight, perhaps he should have anticipated it after all. It was one of Victor’s endearing qualities, one of the reasons why Yuuri was so hopelessly smitten. “Sorry,” he added weakly.

Victor huffed, but his expression relaxed. “Life’s not all about dance, you know.”

“Says the person who would live on the ice rink if he could.” Yuuri wrinkled his nose.

Victor stuck out his tongue. “I’m free this afternoon, if you’d like to rehearse today.”

Yuuri chewed on his lip while his mind raced to find a way out. “Isn’t there that party at J. J.’s tonight?” The ice hockey team had won the interschool finals that week. In turn, J. J., who in addition to being the president of the student council, was the captain of the hockey team, had announced that he would be throwing “the party to end all parties” that Saturday. Nearly everyone Yuuri knew was going – the dancers certainly were – and Yuuri wouldn’t be surprised if the skating team would be too.

“But there’s still the afternoon, isn’t there?” Victor pointed out reasonably. “Unless you were planning on practising all afternoon too?” He cocked his head in a manner which Yuuri recognised all too well. It usually meant that Victor _knew_ that there was something going on with Yuuri, and that Victor would tease the matter out of him eventually, one way or the other.

Inwardly, Yuuri sighed as he resigned himself to an afternoon of torture, with Victor within arm’s reach and his feelings for Victor still nowhere near resolved. Aloud, he said casually, “Nah. I should be done soon.”

“Great,” Victor smiled, his expression brightening. He pushed off the wall he had been leaning on, standing up properly and hooking his thumbs into the front pockets of his jeans. “Shall we get lunch together too?”

Yuuri shifted his weight on his feet. “I’ll pass,” he said, ruthlessly forcing down the swell of regret when Victor’s face fell. “I didn’t tell my parents that I’d be eating out today, so they’d have lunch waiting for me.”

“Oh,” Victor nodded. “Yeah. Makes sense.” He tapped a finger on his lips thoughtfully. “How about coming around to my place after lunch? We could rehearse together for a bit before I drive us both to J. J.’s.”

“Sure,” Yuuri said lightly, throwing in a smile as a peace offering. “I’ll do that. In the meanwhile…” He gestured vaguely around him.

Victor nodded again. “I’ll leave you to it.”

A thought struck Yuuri then. “Did you come to school just to look for me?”

“Not really,” Victor said, ducking his head. “I mean, I went to your place first to look for you, after you didn’t reply to my texts yesterday, but your parents told me that you had come here. And since I was planning to stop by school anyway to pick up a book I had forgotten in my locker…” He trailed off, a sheepish expression crossing his face.

Yuuri nodded mutely, and Victor looked relieved.

“I’ll see you later, then,” he said brightly, waving at Yuuri as he strode to the studio door.

“See you,” Yuuri echoed. 

Finally, alone once more, he took off his glasses tiredly and pinched his nose bridge. So much for his plan to avoid Victor, he thought sullenly as he replaced his glasses and bent to start up the music for his solo piece once more.

=-=-=

Yuuri took the stairs at Victor’s as slowly as he could, and even then, he arrived at Victor’s room far sooner than he liked. He squared his shoulders, steeling himself, before rapping his knuckles on Victor’s door to announce his presence and letting himself in.

Victor was lying on his belly on his bed, his weight propped on his forearms against the mattress. The pages of the handwritten script which Yuuri and him had prepared, now seemingly ages ago, were spread in a semi-circle before him, and he had a highlighter cap clenched between his teeth as he marked out specific lines in neon yellow.

Victor had left his hair loose. The strands spilled messily over his shoulders, glinting silver white where the sun from the window touched them. For an aching, terrifying moment, Yuuri just wanted to reach out to touch those strands, to comb his fingers through Victor’s hair and to kiss away the tiny furrow between his brows as Victor studied their script. He clenched his hands into fists, his fingernails digging sharp crescent moons into the meat of his palms.

Victor glanced up then. He capped the highlighter hurriedly. “Yuuri, you came!” He sounded pleased, but also surprised, as though he hadn’t really been expecting Yuuri to show up after all, despite their conversation that morning.

 _And why not?_ Yuuri thought self-deprecatingly. It was clear that he hadn’t done a good job of hiding that he’d been avoiding Victor. He wondered viciously if Victor would be even half as pleased to see Yuuri in his room, if he knew how Yuuri felt about him.

Aloud, Yuuri said, “I see you’ve started without me.” He nodded his chin at the papers on Victor’s bed and raised a brow.

Victor sat up, shrugging unrepentantly and grinning. “I had some new ideas for the stage blocking and directions.”

Yuuri placed his bag down on Victor’s desk and pulled out his script. Now that he was with Victor again, he found it impossible to resist Victor’s pull. Victor’s enthusiasm had been always been one of the things which Yuuri found attractive about him. “Then let’s get started.”

“Again,” said Victor simply, some hours later.

Yuuri scowled. By now, he was ready to stab Victor with a pen or a ruler, before stuffing their script down his throat, his own crush be damned. “What?”

“The wall scene – again,” Victor repeated. “It needs more feeling. You’re too wooden.”

“I don’t see anything wrong with that,” Yuuri replied crossly. “Didn’t Flute and Bottom act this bit out terribly?”

“But we’re going to be better than them,” Victor glared. “Come on, from the beginning. Pyramus and Thisbe, separated by a wall, are forced to view each other through a hole in the wall.”

There was no good arguing with Victor when he got into such a mood. Yuuri, resigned, closed his eyes briefly and just allowed himself to _feel_. It was no different from how he prepared himself for his dances, he thought. Determined, he opened his eyes. It would be just like how every dance sought to bring the truth of a character’s emotions out onto the stage, laid bare in the choreography for audience to see. He could do this. He could what Victor asked.

As he intoned Pyramus’ lines about the grimness of the night, Yuuri tried to imagine what Pyramus must have felt. He was, he supposed, in some ways sympathetic towards his character. Shakespeare had deliberately written Pyramus’ lines to be awful, but the feeling of longing, which Pyramus must have felt – oh, Yuuri could sympathise very well indeed.

“And thou, O wall, O sweet, O lovely wall, that stand'st between her father's ground and mine,” he cried, allowing frustration to creep into his voice even as he reached out before him and mimed the wall.

A look of wonderment stole across his face. “I see a voice: now will I to the chink,” he told his imaginary audience, “To spy if I can hear my Thisbe's face.” He brought his face close to the invisible wall, and held up his hands briefly to either side of his eye. “Thisbe!”

On the other side of the wall, Victor startled visibly. He spoke, and his voice was in the ridiculous falsetto which they had agreed that Thisbe would use. Yuuri had laughed then, the first time Victor had tried it. Now, however, Yuuri’s only ached in sympathy at the fearful hesitance and urgent hope which warred as Victor spoke, as Thisbe spoke, “My love thou art, my love, I think.”

“Think what thou wilt,” Yuuri – no, Pyramus – replied, hot-blooded and desperate. “I am thy lover’s grace; and like Limander, am I trusty still.”

A shy smile crept over Thisbe’s lips. “And I, like Helen, till the fates me kill.”

“Oh, kiss me through the hole of this vile wall,” Pyramus whispered, raising his lips to where the chink in the wall was.

“I kiss the wall’s hole,” Thisbe sighed, “not your lips at all.”

Thisbe brought her lips where Pyramus’ were, and Victor’s breath was warm where it gusted over the bow of Yuuri’s lips. Unconsciously, Yuuri swayed towards him. They were close now, closer, their lips almost brushing. Victor’s eyes fluttered half-mast, and he leaned in too. Yuuri could feel his pulse quicken, his eyes slipping shut as he gave in to the final inch between them –

and jerked back, horrified.

Victor’s eyes flew open.

For a moment, they stared, wide-eyed, at each other. Yuuri’s heart pounded; he could hear his blood rushing in his ears. He should say something, he knew. Anything to defuse the situation. But his tongue was refusing to become unstuck from the roof of his mouth, and his palms were clammy, and oh, _shit_.

Victor’s cell phone beeped, the sudden sound making them both jump. The sound also pierced through Yuuri’s fog of panic, and he blinked. He could not do anything about the way his chest still felt too tight, about how his heart was a dull ache as it pounded between his ribs, but he could clench his shaking hands into fists, and so he did, stilling them. His mouth was still cotton-dry, but he made himself breath slowly, in and out and in and out. Gradually, the room swam back into sharpness.

Victor cleared his throat, looking up from his phone. “That was Chris,” he said. Yuuri thought his voice sounded oddly hoarse. “They’re at the party already. We should probably go.”

“Yeah,” Yuuri agreed readily. “I think Phichit and the rest would be there by now, too.” Phichit, Yuuri discovered as he dug into his bag and pulled out his cell phone, had texted him too.

“Alright then,” Victor said too quickly, grabbing his wallet from the dresser and not looking at Yuuri at all. “Come on.”

Mutely, Yuuri followed Victor to his car.

They made the journey in awkward silence. Neither of them spoke, but Yuuri could feel it each time Victor darted another contemplative, sideways glance at him. Victor’s mouth opened a couple of times, like he was about to strike up a conversation. Both times, however, he snapped his mouth shut again too soon, as though he had thought the better it. On his part, Yuuri kept his gaze firmly trained on his knees (except for the times _he_ darted quick, worried looks at Victor from the corner of his eye). His fingernails worried at a bit of loose stitching on his shirt, the thread unravelling beneath his fingertips.

“We’re here,” Victor announced abruptly as he pulled his car into park.

“Thanks,” Yuuri acknowledged stiffly. He unfastened his seatbelt, and got out of the car. From the corner of his eye, he watched as Victor did the same.

They crossed the distance between Victor’s car and J. J.’s door briskly, neither of them saying a word, for all that they walked side-by-side. At the hallway, however, Victor hesitated. He reached out suddenly, his fingers catching lightly on the sleeve of Yuuri’s jacket before his hand jerked back, as though he had been scalded.

The movement was not lost on Yuuri.

“Um,” said Victor. He seemed uncomfortable.

Yuuri tensed. He made himself wait patiently, tilting his head in enquiry.

“Will you need a ride back later?” Victor blurted.

“Oh.” Some of the tension seeped out of his body. He resisted the urge to slump his shoulders. “Sure,” he said instead, smiling weakly.

“Cool.” Victor’s smile was equally hesitant, and in that moment, Yuuri found himself feeling sorry for Victor. After all, it was not Victor’s fault that Yuuri couldn’t keep a handle on his feelings.  Yuuri thought about saying something, _anything_ , that would diffuse the tension between them and to make Victor feel comfortable again.

Before he could, however, a familiar, female voice called out Victor’s name. In unison, they turned in the direction of the living room, where the senior skaters were all piled on one of the sofas. They appeared to be watching some kind of film on the giant screen that occupied one of the walls in the living room.

Yuuri did not miss the look of relief that immediately crossed Victor’s face. Beside him, Victor was already moving, taking a running leap and landing on Chris’ lap, before heaving his legs onto Mila’s and Georgi’s. Victor ignored their laughing protests in favour of leaning up to plant kisses on Chris’ and Mila’s cheeks, and stuck his tongue out cheerfully at Georgi when the latter made a face.

Yuuri’s stomach twisted as he watched Chris throw an arm around Victor’s waist, while Victor leaned into Chris’ chest. It was all well and good, he thought darkly, for Victor to claim that Chris was already attached, but _still_. Yuuri hated the sharp stab of jealousy that made him want to ball his hands into fists. He hated the way that he felt, and hated that he couldn’t stop himself from feeling that way.

“Yuuri,” Mila called cheerfully. “Come join us!”

Forcing a smile, Yuuri shook his head and offered an apologetic shrug. He held out his cell phone, and mimed having to look for his friends. Then, he made himself turn away.

He headed for the kitchen first to grab a beer. Then, he carefully picked his way through the crowds, towards the back of house, according to Phichit’s text, where the dancers had commandeered a guest room for themselves. 

He did not stop by the living room again.

=-=-=

Four hours later found Yuuri sprawled on the guest bed.

Seung-gil had snuck a bottle of soju from his home. They passed the bottle around, taking turns to drink from it. Between the clear, rice-based spirit and the beers he had downed earlier that night, Yuuri felt light-headed and more than pleasantly relaxed.

The mattress beside him dipped. Yuuri glanced lazily to his side as Phichit dropped down next to him.

“Move over,” Phichit said, shoving him clumsily.

Yuuri glared, but scooted over nevertheless, before pushing himself up on his elbows. “You’re drunk.”

“So are you,” Phichit retorted, his words slightly slurred. “Sooooo druuuunk.”

Yuuri snorted. “Shut up.”

“Think we’re all drunk,” Phichit reflected philosophically. “-’cept maybe Seung-gil. Dunno how he does it.” He waved his hand vaguely towards the other side of the room, where Minami had fallen asleep on the floor. Seung-Gil sat a couple of feet away with his back against the wall. He had taken his cell phone out, his head bowed over the screen in apparent concentration. He had placed the almost-empty bottle of soju between his legs; every now and then, he raised the bottle to his lips.

“Maybe he’s used to it,” Yuuri offered. “It’s his booze, after all.” He watched idly as Seung-gil took another sip, then let his gaze drift towards the easy chair in the corner of the room, where Leo had been seated most of the night. At some point, Guang Hong had climbed onto Leo’s lap. They were now making out.

The mattress shifted as Phichit turned his head to follow Yuuri’s gaze. “Finally,” he pronounced.

“Took them long enough,” Yuuri agreed with a sigh. He allowed his head to fall back, his eyelids fluttering shut.

“You’re thinking about Victor,” Phichit observed.

“I don’t want to talk about him,” Yuuri muttered petulantly. Then, in a sudden bout of drunken honesty, he added, “I wonder what kissing him would feel like.”

Phichit hummed thoughtfully. “Probably like kissing anyone else. A kiss is a kiss, isn’t it? Two people, two mouths.”

Yuuri thought about it. “Hey, Phichit.”

“Hm?”

“Have you ever kissed anyone before?”

“Kinda. There was someone last summer. Didn’t last long though. You?”

“Never.” He paused as inspiration struck. “Hey.”

“Hm?”

“Can you show me?”

“Show you what?”

“What it’s like. To kiss.”

A huff of laughter. “You’re drunk, Yuuri.”

“So are you,” Yuuri retorted sulkily. Then, “I bet Victor knows how to kiss.”

“Probably,” Phichit conceded.

“So show me,” Yuuri insisted. “It’s unfair that he knows how to kiss and I don’t.” He contemplated his statement, then nodded, pleased with his logic.

Phichit heaved a sigh. “Fine,” he grumbled, and Yuuri nodded again, satisfied.

He opened his eyes, and he pushed himself up carefully to a sitting position, before he craned his neck to regard Phichit properly. Phichit was lying on his back. He met Yuuri’s gaze unblinkingly, his expression serene.

Slowly, deliberately, Yuuri leaned in. He brushed their lips together hesitantly, once, twice, before pressing down lightly. Phichit’s lips were dry and chapped, and when they parted, Yuuri could almost taste the alcohol on his breath.

Yuuri drew back slightly.

“Well?” Phichit asked, with the patience of the inebriated.

Yuuri licked his lips absently. “Not bad,” he decided, “but I don’t see what’s so amazing about it either.”

Phichit laughed softly. “First time’s always strange,” he agreed. “You get used to it, though.”

“And Victor’s probably done it loads of times,” Yuuri reflected. He frowned. “I’ll try again.”

This time, he brought their lips together without hesitation. Again, he tasted the astringent bite of alcohol, and he wondered absently if Phichit could taste the alcohol on Yuuri’s breath too.

 _Huh_ , he wanted to say, when someone coughed at the door.

Yuuri broke away immediately, twisting around to face the newcomer. “Victor!”

Standing in the doorway, Victor looked, well, he looked _startled_. His mouth opened, shut, opened again. “Yuuri,” he managed, his voice strangled.

“Victor,” Yuuri repeated, more calmly now, before trailing off. Victor’s fingers were still gripped around the door handle, his knuckles white. “I…”

“Yuuri,” Victor interrupted. “I’m heading home soon. Thought I’d check to see if you still wanted a lift.” His gaze flicked briefly towards Phichit before returning to Yuuri. He cocked his head, but did not make to enter the room. “Unless you’d like to stay longer?”

“No,” Yuuri stammered. “No, I’ll come.”

“I’ll see you at the front in fifteen,” Victor said lightly, turning back towards the rest of the house and throwing a casual wave over his shoulder.

Yuuri watched dumbly as Victor left.

=-=-=

True to his word, Victor was already waiting by the curb when Yuuri stumbled out through the front door. He nodded as Yuuri approached, pushing off the side of his car and making his way towards the driver’s seat. Mutely, Yuuri opened the passenger’s door and slid in too.

They drove in silence for a while, Victor’s eyes on the road, Yuuri’s eyes on anything but Victor.

“So,” Yuuri offered eventually, when even the silence grew too loud. “I guess you know that I’m gay.” He laughed shakily. “Sorry,” he added as an afterthought, although he wasn’t quite sure what he was apologising for. The buzz from the alcohol was finally starting to fade, and he felt queasy. His hands, where they lay in his lap, clenched into fists.

They drove down two more streets before Victor finally spoke. “You don’t have to apologise.”

“Just felt like I should,” Yuuri muttered to his knees. “Should have told you earlier.”

Victor exhaled noisily. “I don’t mind.”

“Sorry,” Yuuri said again helplessly, but he lifted his head towards the passenger window instead. Victor’s reflection was a pale silhouette in the dark glass.

“Stop it.”

“S-sorry.”

The car turned sharply around a corner, forcing Yuuri to reach out and steady himself with a hand on the glove compartment. In the glass of the window, Victor’s jaw clenched.

“Was that why you’ve been avoiding me?” he asked.

Yuuri flinched. “You’re imagining things.”

“Hn.” When Yuuri dared a sideways glance, Victor’s eyes were still fixed on the road in front. He did not look at Yuuri when he asked, “Do you have someone you like?”

Yuuri spluttered, finally jerking his head around to level a glare. “Don’t be stupid!”

“A boyfriend?”

“Victor…”

“Well, in my case, I – ”

“Shut up!”

“Hn.”

They sped the rest of the way in silence, Victor still taking each and every corner a hair too fast. Yuuri did his best to breathe slowly, in and out, as his gut tried to rebel, the contents of his stomach rising to his throat.

“Hey,” Victor said suddenly, his voice unexpectedly soft. “You know that I’ll still be your friend, right?”

Against his will and the rising nausea, Yuuri felt the corners of his lips twitch. “Be awfully hypocritical of you if you refused.” He vaguely recalled having had told Victor the same thing when Victor came out to him.

“True,” Victor snorted and, just like that, the tension in the car… eased. “So,” Victor continued, his tone light, “Phichit and you?”

“No!” Yuuri exclaimed unthinkingly.

“But you have someone you like?” Victor pressed.

Yuuri crossed his arms over his chest. “Like I’m telling you.”

“Yuuri…” Victor whined.

“No.”

Victor paused. “But weren’t you and Phichit just…?” he trailed off meaningfully, and Yuuri flushed, turning away once more to look out of the passenger window.

“We were just fooling around,” he muttered, just as the car jerked to an abrupt halt. Startled, Yuuri looked around, realising only belatedly that they had pulled up before his home.

“Hey, Yuuri.”

“Hm?”

“You shouldn’t.”

Yuuri’s hands paused where they had been fumbling with his seatbelt. “I shouldn’t what?” he asked, glancing over his shoulder to where Victor still sat, unmoving, in the driver’s seat. It struck Yuuri suddenly that the set of Victor’s shoulders was unusually tense. Yuuri frowned.

“You shouldn’t do stuff like that if you don’t mean it.” Victor replied, seemingly unconscious of Yuuri’s scrutiny. His words were clipped. He sighed, reaching up to push a hand through his hair.  “Kissing, I mean. And… stuff.”  Another sigh, this time with a small frown. “You should only do it with someone you like.”

Yuuri blinked. “You don’t need to worry about me,” he said shortly. Just then, he felt his gorge rise, and he resumed fumbling with his seatbelt. “But,” he added, pushing the passenger door open and scrambling frantically out of the car, “I think I’m going to throw up.”

He made it to the toilet just in time.

His head was killing him when he finally emerged from the shower. He grabbed his cell phone and crawled into bed. Victor, it seemed, had texted him while Yuuri had tried to brush the taste of vomit out of his mouth: _I don’t want you to be hurt. Don’t make me worry. :(_

Yuuri stared at the text, re-reading it. His thumbs hovered over the on-screen keyboard as he pondered his response. Before he could reply, however, his cell phone buzzed again in his hands: _Drink plenty of water, drunkard._

Despite his headache, Yuuri fell asleep with a smile.

=-=-=

Monday morning found Victor sitting on Yuuri’s front porch when Yuuri stumbled blearily out of his home. The sight made Yuuri draw up short and blink, confused.

Victor stood up slowly, muffling a yawn behind his hand. “Thought I’d save you the trouble of cycling to school,” he said, when he had dropped his hand. His crooked grin was warm despite the light morning chill, and Yuuri felt his own heart tremble and break all over again as he gave himself up to inevitability.

=-=-=

After that, Yuuri allowed himself to hang out with Victor once more. If nothing else, the past week had shown him that his feelings for Victor would not be going away any time soon. It certainly also helped to know that Victor was, despite the weekend, still willing to seek him out.

Their friendship would survive his crush. Yuuri would make sure of it.

The rides in Victor’s car resumed. None of Victor’s friends commented when Yuuri joined their table again, for which Yuuri was grateful. Their other rehearsals were blissfully uneventful. And if Yuuri thought he caught Victor looking at him oddly every now and then, usually when he thought Yuuri would not notice, and always glancing away when he caught Yuuri looking back – well.

It would be just until the end of their World Theatre module, Yuuri told himself. Prom would come soon enough, and college thereafter. They would each find someone else to date, and Yuuri would finally be able to forget that he had ever felt anything more for Victor.

Limping, stumbling, they somehow made it to the day of the presentation.

Mr Cialdini, it turned out, had booked the school’s auditorium for the period. Waiting in the wings of the stage, it struck Yuuri then just how much theatre, in its own way, resembled dance. A familiar calm stole over him as he stepped out before his audience. He spoke, and Bottom spoke through him. He was Bottom, who played Pyramus, and who played him badly. He was Pyramus, who pined for his lover beyond the wall. He was Pyramus, who arrived at the rendezvous, only to find his lover’s bloodied veil on the ground.

“Out, sword,” Bottom exclaimed melodramatically in his role as Pyramus, while Yuuri drew the toy sword Victor had procured for their performance, “and wound the pap of Pyramus. Ay,” he cried, “that left pap where heart doth hop.”

He raised the sword and made to plunge the sword into his breast. “Thus die I, thus, thus, thus…” He trailed off, slumping to the ground. “Now am I dead.”

Pyramus lay on the stage, Pyramus no more but Bottom, Bottom no more but Yuuri once again. Yuuri remained still, his eyes perfectly shut. Even then, he knew the moment Victor joined him on the stage, sniggers rippling through their audience.

In the end, they had decided to dress Victor in skirts for his role of Flute-as-Thisbe. From the way the audience’s laughter was growing by the second, they had achieved the comedic effect they had sought.

“Asleep, my love?” Victor shrilled in Flute’s falsetto, and the audience howled. “What, dead my dove?” he cried, and even Yuuri, who had been expecting it, had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from smiling.

“Oh!” Thisbe exclaimed, as she fell onto her knees beside Pyramus’ fallen form. “Oh!” A hand touched the side of Yuuri’s face.

“Oh,” Thisbe whispered, and suddenly, she was Flute instead, his voice trembling with barely concealed grief. “Oh, Pyramus arise.” The hand on Yuuri’s face traced the curve of his cheek, lighting upon his lips with a soft caress. “Speak,” Flute begged. “Speak.”

The hand drew away. “Quite dumb?” Flute breathed, soft as a hush. “Dead, dead?”

It was a moment they had rehearsed. Victor bent over Yuuri’s prone form. Slowly, Victor reached for the crown of his head and unpinned his hair. It tumbled past his shoulders, the ends brushing against Yuuri’s cheek. When Victor leaned over, his hair fell across Yuuri’s face, a soft curtain. Yuuri breathed, and inhaled the sweet, apple scent of the conditioner which Victor used.

“A tomb,” Victor murmured, for it was Victor now, his fingertips gentle over Yuuri’s eyelids, “must cover thy sweet eyes.” Victor curved his body over Yuuri’s as he spoke, close enough now that his breath ghosted along the line of Yuuri’s jaw. “This cherry nose, these yellow cornslip cheeks, are gone, are gone.”

Victor’s voice rose, plaintive, mournful. “Oh, Sisters three, come, come to me with hands as pale as milk,” he pleaded as he rose on his knees again, and Yuuri knew that Victor was holding his arms out to their audience in desperate appeal. “Lay them in gore,” he begged, “since you have shore with shears his thread of silk.”

Their audience had fallen quiet.

“Tongue,” Flute whispered, defeated, his shoulders slumping as he rested a finger on his lips, “not a word.”

Yuuri could feel the moment Victor grasped at the hilt of the toy sword, drawing it from where Yuuri had sandwiched it between his arm and the side of his chest. “Come, trusty sword,” Victor

He stabbed himself, and collapsed over Yuuri’s body.

The auditorium remained still. Slowly, Victor raised his head. “And farewell, friends,” he murmured. “Thus, Thisbe ends.”

Flute’s hand caressed Bottom’s face a final time – and oh, they had rehearsed this part too, but there was something about the moment now which made Yuuri’s heart ache with sadness and longing.

“Adieu,” Flute murmured. “Adieu.” He buried his face against Bottom’s neck. “Adieu.”

They waited for a beat. Victor stood up first. He held out his hand, and Yuuri took it, letting Victor pull him to his feet.

Yuuri stumbled as he rose, off-balance. Victor caught him against his chest, and Yuuri buried his face against Victor’s shoulder.

“We did it,” he whispered.

Victor’s arms tightened around him. “Yeah.”

Yuuri closed his eyes, prolonging the moment. Victor seemed equally loath to let him go, his arms unmoving where they remained, wrapped, around Yuuri.

Someone in the audience started to clap. The clapping grew, scattered at first, but louder now, and louder still. Reluctantly, Yuuri drew away. His hand found Victor’s.

They bowed to applause.

“I’m glad it’s over,” Yuuri muttered as they made their way back to their seats.

“Think we made Ciao Ciao cry?” Victor asked cheekily, cocking his head towards where Mr Cialdini sat.

Yuuri snuck a glance, just in time to watch their teacher dab his eyes with his cuff. “Maybe,” he sniggered. “But that was amazing,” he offered. “ _You_ were amazing.”

Victor shrugged, his mouth curving in a soft smile. “I just tried to imagine what it’d be like if you had died.”

“Oh,” Yuuri breathed. “ _Oh._ ” He swallowed, and willed his cheeks not to flush. It was just a holdover from their performance. He was reading too much into this. He was – 

“Yuuri…” Victor said softly, biting his lip.

“The next group’s starting,” Yuuri blurted. He collapsed in his seat, and carefully avoided Victor’s gaze for the rest of the class. When the bell finally rang, he was one of the first to escape into the corridor.

At lunch, Yuuri hesitated with his food tray, before marching towards the dancers’ table, where he sat. With their performance over, there was no longer any need for him to sit with Victor and the other skaters. He began to unwrap his sandwich, and deliberately avoided looking anywhere in the direction of the skaters’ table.

Phichit took the seat next to him. “Victor’s staring at you,” he murmured as he extracted his drink straw from its plastic sleeve.

Yuuri felt his face heat. He shook his head slightly. “Ignore him. It’s probably nothing.” 

Phichit’s lips thinned. Yuuri suddenly had the impression that Phichit was displeased with him. Still, his tone was mild when he spoke again. “You can’t keep ignoring him forever.”

“It’s just a silly crush,” Yuuri muttered resentfully. “I’ll graduate and get over it.”

Phichit hummed as he started on his fries, offering Yuuri some. He did not bring up Yuuri’s college plans, for which Yuuri was profoundly grateful.

Leo and Guang Hong arrived at their table then, Leo slapping down the flyers which J. J.’s fanclub had been handing out in the corridors all day. “So,” he said casually, “prom, anyone?”

“I’m going too,” Guang Hong grinned beside him. “He’s asked me to be his date.”

“That’s hardly a surprise,” Seung-gil smirked.

Across the table, Minami pretended to sulk. “Guang Hong’s lucky to be dating a senior. He gets to go to prom even though he’s not one.” He stuck out his tongue, and everyone laughed.

“Minami could be my date,” Phichit suggested with a wink.

“Eh?!”

“Just seems a bit unfair,” Phichit said, spreading his hands and shrugging. “You know, Minami being the only one who can’t go, because he isn’t a senior and isn’t dating one.”

“Phichit, you’ve just become my favourite senior,” Minami declared solemnly. “I think I like you more than I like Yuuri.”

“Hey!” Yuuri yelped, while everyone cracked up again.

Later, Phichit fell into step beside him as they returned their trays. “So, who’ll you be going with, Yuuri?”

“I don’t have to go with anyone,” Yuuri retorted, shoving his tray into its slot with a little more force than necessary.

“You don’t have to,” Phichit agreed, “But you could always try asking Victor.”

“He’s probably asked someone already,” Yuuri muttered darkly, finally stealing a glance at Victor for the first time since their lunch hour. The skaters had already cleared their table, and were gathering the rest of their things. Victor had slung an arm around Chris, another around Mila. His face was close to both of theirs, and he was laughing. Yuuri tore his gaze away.

“You could still try,” Phichit suggested, seemingly unaware of the tableau Yuuri had observed.

Yuuri sighed. “I’ll think about it.”

Later that day, Yuuri found a flyer for the prom in his bag, the colourful sheet of paper jumbled amidst his Chemistry notes. He didn’t doubt for a second that it had been placed there by Phichit, from when the two of them had sat next to each other in the class.

As reminders went, it was pretty pointed.

All the same, Yuuri was going to ignore it.

Sighing, he crumpled the flyer in his fist and tossed it into the wastepaper basket. At least Phichit wasn’t around to click his tongue disapprovingly at him.

=-=-=

It turned out that he would receive another reminder. This time, however, it came from an unlikely source.

Yuuri’s eyes widened in surprise as he recognised the hooded, blond figure who was leaning against his locker. It was an unexpected sight.

“Yurio?” he asked, confused, as his feet carried him the last couple of metres forward to before stumbling to an uncertain halt.  For all that he had grown friendlier with the other skaters at Victor’s table, none of them had actively sought him out like this before. And while all the skaters seemed to like Yuuri, Yuuri sometimes wondered if Yuri Plisetsky liked him the least.

“It’s Yuri, not Yurio,” the younger boy snapped as he straightened, pushing himself upright. “Get it right, Katsuki.”

Yuuri held his hands up placating. “Alright, I got it. It’s Yuri.”

 “Good,” Yuri nodded, seemingly satisfied. However, he continued to scowl.

Yuuri cleared his throat nervously.

“Oh, sorry.” Yuri shifted to the side, allowing Yuuri to access his locker.

Hurriedly, Yuuri spun the lock open. He grabbed his clothes for dance practice and shoved them into his bag hurriedly, conscious all the while of the fact that Yuri was still staring at him. He fumbled the locker door shut, and cleared his throat again. “Were you looking for me?”

“No, I just like to hang around people’s lockers, looking like a loser.” Yuri rolled his eyes. “Of course I was looking for you.”

“Oh.” Yuuri tried to process that. “What is it?”

Yuri glanced away then, biting his lip. His shoulders slumped, all hint of belligerence suddenly leaving him. For the first time, he looked unsure, and possibly just as nervous as Yuuri felt.

Yuuri waited patiently.

“I need advice.”

Yuuri blinked. “Ah…”

“It’s about this.” Yuri shoved a piece of paper into Yuuri’s hands. It was a flyer for the prom.

Yuuri stared. He was pretty certain that Phichit hadn’t put Yuri up to handing him yet another flyer, but, “Alright…?”

“Just so we’re clear, I’m not asking you to have me as your date to the prom.” Yuri glared.

Yuuri laughed weakly. “I wasn’t thinking that at all,” he said, his voice faint.

“Oh. Good.” Yuri subsided once more. He shifted his weight uncomfortably. “So. Um. Like I said, I need advice.”

Yuuri nodded uncertainly. “Okay.”

“It’s about Beka. Otabek.”

“Okay…?”

“You said before at lunch that you knew him.”

“I’ve only worked with him,” Yuuri clarified. “You know, stage productions, dance stuff, that sort of thing. We’re not actually friends.”

“But you know what he’s like?” Yuri pressed.

“He tends to keep to himself, really.” Yuuri shrugged sheepishly. “We haven’t really spoken much outside of our productions.”

“Yeah, he’s like that.” Yuri’s lips curved in a soft smile. “He took a while to warm up to me too, and he still lets me do most of the talking.” Suddenly, Yuri seemed to realise that he was smiling. He hastily rearranged his features into a frown.

Yuuri bit back a grin. “Is this about going to the prom with Otabek?”

Instantly, Yuri went red.

“You said you needed advice,” Yuuri prompted, no longer feeling quite as awkward as he had felt a minute ago.

Yuri hesitated for a moment longer, before giving in. “Beka says he’s not asked anyone to go with him to the prom yet. I want him to ask me.”

Yuuri’s brows rose. “I don’t see how that’s a problem.”

“I can’t just tell him that,” Yuri burst out. “He’s older than me, and he’s so cool. What if he just thinks of me as this annoying younger kid who hangs out with him all the time? I mean, it’s stupid. Prom’s stupid. But you guys are all going away to college next year, even him, while I’ll still be stuck here, and I don’t want him to forget me, you know?”

“I don’t – ” Yuuri tried to interject, but Yuri carried on.

“And I can’t go to my friends for advice, because they’ll laugh at me. And Victor would probably suggest some kind of stupid and overdramatic declaration, like releasing a hundred doves into the AV-control room the next time Beka’s there, or playing Whitney Houston’s _I Wanna Dance with Somebody_ over the school’s announcement system, and _urgh_.” He wrinkled his nose in disgust.

“I’ve always preferred Taylor Swift to Whitney Houston,” Yuuri remarked absently.

Yuri glowered.

“But,” Yuuri said slowly as he gathered his thoughts, a vague memory from the skating finals now coming to the fore, “if you like him, and he likes you, why don’t you just ask him out?”

Yuri snorted. “What are you talking about? He doesn’t like me that way.”

Yuuri bit the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing. “I still think you should ask him,” he said firmly. “You won’t know until you do. Just… skip the doves, or the Whitney Houston, or any of the other melodramatic things which you skaters seem so weirdly fond of.”

Yuri eyed him suspiciously. “You think I should?”

“I do.”

A small voice in the back of Yuuri’s mind pointed out that he should be taking his own advice too. The voice sounded rather like Phichit’s. Yuuri ignored it.

Yuri still looked uncertain. However, his frown had eased. “Alright,” he said grudgingly.

“Good luck,” Yuuri offered, heartfelt.

Yuri grunted his acknowledgement and began walking off. He paused a few steps away, and turned back. “Hey, Katsuki.”

“Mm?”

“What about you? Are you asking anyone to the prom?”

“I – ”

“If you haven’t asked anyone yet, I think you should ask Victor.” Yuri gave a final wave, before carrying on down the corridor.

Startled, and at a loss for words, Yuuri stared blankly at Yuri’s receding back, watching him go.

                                                                                         =-=-=

In the end, Yuuri went to the prom with the rest of the dancers, all of them sharing the cost of a limousine to pick them up, just for the fun of it. Phichit raised a brow meaningfully as Yuuri climbed into his seat. Yuuri ignored him.

The ballroom was full of people. Weaving his way through the crowd, Yuuri had to concede that J. J., for all his bluster, had done a good job in getting the event together.

Still, it didn’t stop him from smirking at J. J.’s tuxedo. “It’s ridiculous,” he pronounced, when he had finally made his way through the crowd, and to the corner of the ballroom which the dancers had claimed for their own.

Phichit chortled as he accepted one of the drinks which Yuuri had brought. “Baby blue.”

“Like the Eighties, but worse,” Yuuri agreed, taking a sip of his own.

“J. J. style, my ass,” Seung-gil said, joining them.

They laughed. Seung-gil pulled out his cell phone and squinted at its screen.  Yuuri leaned against the wall, and watched idly as Guang Hong pulled Leo onto the dance floor. He thought he saw a glimpse of Minami on the dance floor too, bogeying to a ragtime beat while a group of girls from the drama society cheered him on.

Suddenly curious, he searched the ballroom for the DJ’s booth, finally spotting it on the other end of the room. He could just make out Otabek, who always volunteered to spin for their school’s events whenever he could. His dark head was bowed in concentration over the sound mixer, but he wasn’t alone. Yuuri grinned at the sight of a smaller, blond-haired figure who was lounging against the half-wall of the booth.

Phichit elbowed him. “Hey, look, there’s Victor.” He elbowed Yuuri again, forcing Yuuri to re-direct his attention. Unconsciously, he followed Phichit’s gaze. The skaters, it seemed, had clustered around the photo booth a few metres away – little more than a decorated wall with an instant camera to the side and a table of props nearby – and were trying out all sort of ridiculous poses.

Yuuri watched as Victor took a running leap, holding his legs out in a mid-air straddle just long enough for the moment to be captured on film. Victor was laughing. Against his will, Yuuri smiled.

 “They look like they’re having fun,” Phichit remarked dryly.

Yuuri schooled his expression. “Hm.”

“Victor looks like he’s having fun.”

“Hm.”

“You should go to him.”

Yuuri glared. “What?”

“I mean it.”

“You’ve got to be kidding.”

“I’m not.”

Yuuri finished his drink in a swift gulp, then crossed his arms before his chest. “You’re being ridiculous.”

Phichit plucked the now-empty cup from Yuuri’s fingers. “You’ve been pining all year. Now’s your chance. Ask him to dance.”

Yuuri shook his head stubbornly. “We’ve already been through this. You know that Victor doesn’t feel that way.”

“But this is your one and only chance,” Phichit pointed out reasonably. “Now, go,” he urged, shoving Yuuri without warning in the direction of the photo booth.

Caught off-guard, Yuuri stumbled. By the time he had regained his balance, he was close enough to the photo wall that Victor had noticed him.

“Yuuri!” Victor called, darting away from the other skaters just long enough to wrap his fingers firmly around Yuuri’s arm. He tugged Yuuri towards the photo wall.

“Victor,” Yuuri protested, doing his best to shake Victor off, “let go.”

“Then don’t start avoiding me again,” Victor retorted cheerily. His grip did not loosen.

“I’m not avoiding you,” Yuuri shot back, unthinkingly

Victor did not deign to reply. He continued to pull Yuuri through the crowd, only letting Yuuri’s arm drop as they neared the photo wall. “Look who I found!”

Chris, who appeared to be trying to convince Mila to take a photograph of his ass, whooped. “Oi, you two, come join me.”

Yuuri blushed. Before he could stammer out an excuse, however, Victor was already pushing Chris out of the frame.

“Stop hogging the camera, idiot.”

Chris stuck his tongue out in response, but joined the rest of the skaters without protest. He grabbed Georgi’s drink and, ignoring the other boy’s protests, used it to toast Yuuri and Victor.

Laughingly, Victor blew a raspberry in Chris’ direction, before turning once again to Yuuri. “Come on,” he urged.

Yuuri found himself yanked before the photo wall before he had any time to blink.

Mila had held the instant film camera to her eye. “Say cheese, boys.”

Hoping it wasn’t too obvious just how awkward he was feeling, Yuuri plastered a grin onto his face hastily. From the corner of his eye, he spied Victor doing the same. Victor looked unfairly calm, Yuuri thought sourly. Victor’s grin was wide and impossibly bright, and he looked more handsome in his suit than anyone had a right to be, despite his ridiculous ponytail.

The camera flashed.

“Next!” Victor exclaimed. He was already moving before Yuuri could react, moving behind Yuuri to rest a hand on the crown of Yuuri’s head. Yuuri got the hint, bending his knees. An increase in pressure told Yuuri that Victor had rested his chin on top of the hand which Victor had on Yuuri’s head.

The little bit of extra weight was oddly reassuring. Suddenly, it wasn’t just Yuuri grappling with his awkward feelings for his best friend. Rather, it was Yuuri _and_ his best friend. It was Yuuri and Victor, goofing off together, just like they had been for years, and just like they always would, if either of them had any say in it.

Yuuri could feel where Victor’s fingers curled through his hair in a teasing caress. He decided to play along, tipping his head back and casting his eyes up in feigned surprise. He brought his hands up beneath his chin, palms open and fingers spread, framing the tableau.

_Flash!_

“Quick,” Victor urged, moving off Yuuri immediately. He held out a hand, fingers and thumb curved in one half of a heart. Obediently, Yuuri followed suit, making the other half.

Something took hold of him then. He could feel it as it pulsed through his veins, mischievous, mercurial, _daring_. He caught Victor’s eye, and Victor’s brow rose. Yuuri shot a flirtatious wink at the camera, while Victor brought a hand over his mouth in mimicry of a mildly scandalised expression.

_Flash!_

Victor glanced at him expectantly, and just like that, Yuuri knew exactly what Victor wanted him to do next. Daringly, not quite believing himself still, he leaned forward to press a kiss on Victor’s cheek.

He was not counting on Victor following suit.

Their noses and lips bumped awkwardly. Victor’s eyes widened in shock, and Yuuri was pretty certain that his were the same. The back of his mind noted distantly that Victor’s lips were warm, the skin dry and lightly chapped.

 _I’m kissing Victor,_ he thought dazedly, just as the camera flashed again to the sound of catcalls and laughter.

“That’s it, boys,” Mila called out, still laughing, as she set the camera down.

Instantly, Yuuri and Victor sprang apart.

[ ](http://s38.photobucket.com/user/moonhouse10/media/yoibb%20finished%20piece_zpsaqozln2o.jpg.html)

“That was beautiful,” Chris added, grinning from ear to ear. He edged towards Yuuri and nudged him meaningfully with his shoulder. “Yuuri,” he purred teasingly, “I didn’t know you had it in you.” He gave a flirtatious wink, and Yuuri could feel himself go beet red.

“Leave Yuuri alone,” Victor snapped.

Chris quirked a brow. Still, he backed away willingly enough, his palms held out before him in a placatory fashion.

A white square popped out from the slot in the camera’s belly. Georgi plucked it out, holding it by the corner and waving it gently in the air to speed up the film’s development. He offered the printed photo collage to Yuuri, who took it with nerveless fingers. He glanced down, and watched as the colours and shapes gradually took form on the glossy surface of the instant film. Victor and him, goofing off in front of the camera. Victor and him, _kissing_.

Mutely, Yuuri held the printed collage out towards Victor. Victor took it wordlessly, glancing down briefly at it before tucking it away inside his jacket. Only then did he look up again. His expression was unreadable as he met Yuuri’s gaze.

Yuuri felt an odd calm settle over his shoulders. “Hey, Victor, would you like to dance?”

Victor swallowed visibly. “Holy shit,” he whispered.

“Victor?”

Victor smiled weakly. His fingers, however, were tight as a vice where they wrapped around Yuuri’s wrist. Yuuri yelped.

“Come with me,” Victor ordered, his voice hoarse.

“Victor?” Yuuri enquired again, a split second before he found himself yanked unceremoniously away from the photo wall.

[ ](http://s38.photobucket.com/user/moonhouse10/media/would%20you%20like%20to%20dance_zpsyobgupbh.jpg.html)

“Be right back,” Victor called over his shoulder to the bewildered skaters, as he continued to drag Yuuri towards the exit of the ballroom.

“Victor, let go of me.” Yuuri tried to shake him off, only succeeding after Victor had led him to a quiet corner of the hotel lobby outside. “I said, let go.”

“Sorry,” Victor said. He even sounded contrite.

Yuuri darted a furtive look at their surroundings. Fortunately, no one seemed to be paying them any mind; just two boys taking a breather from their school’s prom in the ballroom just beyond. Still, he lowered his voice, even as he glared at Victor. “What’s gotten into you?”

Instead of backing down, Victor stepped into Yuuri’s space. This close, Yuuri could feel where Victor’s breath gusted over his cheek. “Yuuri,” he said tersely, “I’m going to ask you again: do you have someone you like?”

“No!”

“What about me?”

“What?” Yuuri glared.

“Do you like me?” Victor pressed.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Yuuri bit out.

“Yuuri,” Victor said, his voice quiet, “I like you.”

Yuuri gaped.

“I like you,” Victor repeated, “and I think – _I think_ – you like me too.” His gaze was piercing as he searched Yuuri’s face. “Am I wrong?”

And something in Yuuri broke.

Victor’s hair was soft to the touch as Yuuri cupped his fingers around the back of Victor’s head, and his lips were even softer when Yuuri pulled him into a kiss. The angle was not the best, but Yuuri didn’t care. Victor’s eyes were wide and impossibly blue as they remained open and held Yuuri’s gaze, and his mouth tasted of the sparkling punch which they had been served at the prom all night. Yuuri drank it all in, and when Victor made a small, startled noise, Yuuri swallowed that too.

“No,” Yuuri whispered somewhat breathlessly as he drew back. “You’re not wrong.”

“Good.” Victor’s grin was wicked as he tugged Yuuri back in for another kiss.

=-=-=

They almost didn’t return to the ballroom. Victor was all for the two of them leaving the prom early. Yuuri, however, was insistent that _someone would notice, Victor, we can’t – what are you… mm…_

 “Did I ever tell you that you worry too much?” Victor asked when they finally came up for air again. He was trying to sound cross, but the effect was rather ruined by the goofy grin that was fixed firmly on his lips.

“And yet I don’t see you complaining,” Yuuri retorted, reaching up to trace the curve of Victor’s smile with the pad of his thumb. He was pretty certain that he wore a matching grin.

Victor nipped at Yuuri’s thumb in response.

“Come on,” Yuuri urged, eventually, after they had gotten their shirt collars and jackets back in order. “Let’s get back before our friends send out a search party.” He combed his fingers nervously through his hair a final time.

Beside him, Victor suddenly looked sheepish. Yuuri raised a brow.

Victor ducked his chin. A faint pink tinge had crept onto his cheeks. Victor, Yuuri decided then, and not for the last time, was _adorable_.

“My friends probably know,” Victor was saying. He slanted a coy gaze at Yuuri from beneath his eyelashes. “I may have, ah, already told them about how I feel about you.”

Yuuri’s head jerked up at that. “What?” he stammered. But they had arrived at the ballroom once again, and Victor was already drifting away to join the rest of the skaters.

Somehow, they made it through the rest of the prom. Each time Yuuri glanced at Victor, he found Victor staring openly at him. The sixth time this happened, Yuuri sent a little wave in his direction. Victor’s resulting smile was bright enough to light up the entire room.

Yuuri got his dance with Victor soon after, when Victor came up behind him, curving an arm around the small of Yuuri’s back. “I believe you asked me just now if I wanted to dance,” he whispered hotly into Yuuri’s ear, making Yuuri shudder.

Yuuri turned his head, glaring at Victor. “Not here,” he hissed.

Victor smirked unrepentantly, brushing the tips of their noses together in an Eskimo kiss. “I can be good,” he promised, his eyes dancing. “Come on,” he urged, tugging Yuuri towards the dancefloor.

“How is it that you’re so graceful on the ice, when you can’t even dance without stepping on your partner’s feet?” Yuuri griped without heat, halfway through the song.

“Shut up,” Victor protested laughingly. “It’s different,” he insisted, before stepping on Yuuri’s left foot _again_ , and Yuuri found that he didn’t mind it at all.

(“Everyone, my best friend’s getting married!” Phichit exclaimed later, after their two groups of friends had somehow gravitated towards and mingled with each other, and Yuuri found that he didn’t mind _that_ either.)

They didn’t go to the after-party at J. J.’s.

In the quiet darkness of Victor’s room, Yuuri ran his hands reverentially down the lean planes of Victor’s torso, still hardly daring to believe that this was real.

Beneath him, Victor giggled. “That tickles.”

Yuuri nipped at his lips in playful rebuke. “I’m appreciating the moment,” he told Victor mock-solemnly.

“I can think of other things that could do with appreciating,” Victor retorted smartly. He smirked impishly, and it was only the warning Yuuri had before Victor wrapped his arms around Yuuri’s back and, with surprising strength, flipped them.

Yuuri fell back against the mattress, the air in his lungs escaping in a noisy _whoosh_. His legs fell open instinctively, and Victor settled between his thighs. Yuuri reached up, tracing a fingertip down the side of Victor’s face before delivering a mischievous bop on the tip of Victor’s nose. “Hi,” he whispered, smiling, soft and fond.

Victor grinned rakishly, and where the curve of Yuuri’s lips was all gentle adoration, Victor’s was hungry arousal. “Hi,” he murmured, before diving right in to mouth along the column of Yuuri’s neck.

Thinking soon became difficult. Still, Yuuri suddenly remembered something. “Wait,” he gasped breathlessly, even as he tipped his head back to give Victor greater access. “Wait!” He tangled his fingers in Victor’s hair and tugged.

Victor withdrew, scowling. “What?” he huffed impatiently.

Yuuri gulped a shuddering breath as he struggled to gather his thoughts. “What you said earlier tonight,” he managed, “something about your friends already knowing – “ he broke off abruptly with a gasp, when Victor nosed at the sensitive skin behind Yuuri’s ear, at a spot which they had both newly discovered made Yuuri shiver and moan. “… knowing about, about us,” he finished weakly, giving Victor’s hair another light tug in retaliation.

Victor laughed sheepishly, burying his face in the crook of Yuuri’s neck. “What about it?” he asked, his voice muffled.

Yuuri untangled his fingers from Victor’s hair, in favour of tracing idle patterns against Victor’s scalp. Victor made a contented noise. “You said you told them that you liked me.”

“Yeah, I did,” Victor admitted grudgingly, raising his head to meet Yuuri’s gaze.

“When was that?”

“Must you ask this now?” Victor pouted. “When we’re…” he trailed off, waggling his eyebrows suggestively.

Yuuri refused to be baited, and waited expectantly.

Eventually, Victor sighed. “I guess it kinda just… crept up on me?”

He leaned down to capture Yuuri’s lips in a demanding kiss. “I was so angry when I saw you and Phichit kissing,” he murmured against Yuuri’s mouth, tracing the seam of Yuuri’s lips with the tip of his tongue before licking in. Yuuri whimpered. “I was so angry,” he repeated, when Yuuri was reduced to needy mewls, “and then, there was Ciao Ciao’s project, and I just… knew.”

He withdrew with a final peck, resting his elbows on either side of Yuuri’s head to regard him solemnly. “Since we’re doing this now, what about you?”

Yuuri smiled shyly. “I don’t know,” he admitted honestly. “You’ve been with me for so long, that I couldn’t help but love you. And at some point, I fell in love with you too.” He turned his head away, avoiding Victor’s eyes, suddenly shy.

Victor’s hand was gentle as it cupped his cheek, redirecting Yuuri’s gaze to meet his once more. “I’m glad to hear that,” he said fiercely, claiming Yuuri’s lips in a possessive kiss before resting their foreheads together.

Slowly, Yuuri became aware of Victor’s hand as it traced a path down his chest and over his stomach, coming to rest only just above his pelvis. Instinctively, Yuuri arched his hips, straining into Victor’s touch as he silently begged for Victor to do something, anything.

“Is this okay?” Victor asked. For the first time that night, he sounded hesitant.

Yuuri blushed, his mouth suddenly going dry. “Always,” he promised hoarsely.

Victor’s touch drifted lower, between Yuuri’s legs, teasing, _knowing_. Yuuri inhaled sharply, his voice breaking into a whine before Victor captured his lips once more.

It was a long while before either of them spoke again.

Yuuri woke in the morning to find himself still wrapped in Victor’s arms. They were sticky with sweat everywhere their skin touched, even though they had kicked the sheets off at some point in the night, and Victor had drooled a wet patch on Yuuri’s shoulder. Still, Yuuri couldn’t help but smile, contentment washing over him in a warm swell.

He remained as he was, as still as he could, until he could not ignore the call of his bladder any longer. Then, he elbowed Victor gently in the ribs.

Victor’s nose scrunched, and Yuuri reflected once again that Victor was adorable, even in spite of his terrible bedhead.

“Mmrph,” Victor managed, as he blinked to wakefulness.

“Move, you octopus,” Yuuri ordered, swatting at Victor playfully.

Victor gave him a baleful glare, but rolled away nevertheless to bury his face into a pillow.

Yuuri gave him another fond glance, before rolling off the bed to hunt down his pants from last night. He made it to the bathroom and back without encountering Victor’s parents, which he found himself rather grateful for.

Victor had propped himself up on an elbow in Yuuri’s absence. He looked up as Yuuri re-entered the bedroom, his face splitting in a dopey grin. “Good morning,” he greeted, far too cheerful for the hour. HIs gaze roved hungrily over Yuuri’s bare torso, before lingering at Yuuri’s neck which, Yuuri realised abruptly, was probably littered with marks from the previous night. He flushed.

Victor’s brow rose. “No morning kiss?” he asked teasingly.

If anything, Yuuri felt his cheeks grow hotter. “You’reawful,” he grumbled, even as he crossed the room again to plant a chaste kiss on Victor’s lips.

“Mm,” Victor hummed, cupping his free hand around the back of Yuuri’s skull and turning the kiss decidedly less chaste.

“Breakfast?” Victor suggested, looking slightly pink in the cheeks when they parted. “I think I hear my parents in the kitchen.” His gaze flicked to Yuuri’s crumpled pants. “Although I should probably lend you some of my clothes first,” he mused, smirking impishly.

 “Sure,” Yuuri replied easily, refusing to be baited.

“What shall we do after that?” Victor asked, as he pulled a spare set of clothes from his wardrobe. I’m free all day, if it helps,” he added, turning to catch Yuuri’s eye and raising his brow meaningfully.

Yuuri felt an answering laugh bubble in his chest, spilling out as bright as the golden sunlight that streamed through Victor’s bedroom window. “We have time to figure it out,” he agreed, because they did.

All the rest of their lives, in fact, if Yuuri had any say in it.

=-=-=

In the end, nothing really changed.

Yuuri still rode with Victor to school in the mornings. They resumed eating with each other during lunchtime, once again alternating between the skaters’ and the dancers’ respective tables in the cafeteria. In the evenings, Yuuri still hung out by the ice rink, watching Victor practise; or Victor dropped by the dance studio, waiting until Yuuri was done with stretching, before they headed home together again. And while they were not able to hang out in each other’s rooms as much as they would like, what with Yuuri’s dance recital fast approaching, they still managed: sprawling lazily on each other’s beds whenever they could, their conversation drifting desultorily from one topic to the next, until eventually, they fell asleep beside one another.

Nothing really changed, except for the tiny ways they did. Victor greeted Yuuri in the car each morning with a kiss. At lunchtime, Yuuri found himself pulled onto Victor’s lap more often than not, Victor’s arm wrapped firmly around his front, and none of their friends commenting on it. When they hung out in each other’s rooms, half their conversations were spent with Victor’s tongue in Yuuri’s mouth, while Yuuri’s fingers fumbled clumsily with the fly on Victor’s jeans.

The night of the seniors’ recital, Yuuri almost missed his cue to return to the stage for the curtain call, because Victor had sought him out in the dressing room after his solo performance, and, _well_.

It was a week to graduation. Yuuri was lying on his bed after dinner, idly watching clips from the latest episode of _So You Think You Can Dance_ on his cell phone, when Victor barged into his room. He bolted upright immediately. “What did I tell you about knocking?” he began, but Victor shove a big, thick envelope towards him.

“Your mom passed it to me on the way up, said she forgot to hand it to you just now,” he said by way of explanation as he clambered onto Yuuri’s bed and sat on his heels. “Open it,” he urged breathlessly. His excitement was palpable.

“What is it?” Yuuri asked, before his eyes fell onto the circular crest that was printed on the corner of the envelope. He gulped.

“Looks too thick to be a rejection letter,” Victor added, grinning hugely.

Yuuri tore the envelope open with trembling fingers. Colourful brochures spilled out on top of his sheets. He fumbled for the cover letter with a hand, while his other hand pushed his glasses further up his nose. The thick, cream-coloured paper barely creased as he picked it up with clammy fingers. It shook as he brought it closer to his face to read.

He could feel Victor watching as his smile grew with every sentence.

Yuuri was in the middle of the letter when Victor whooped and tackled him back onto the bed. Yuuri yelped. “My glasses,” he protested, trying to glare through lenses that had been knocked askew.

Victor ignored him in favour of plucking Yuuri’s glasses clean off Yuuri’s nose. He kissed the space between Yuuri’s brows, which had just begun to furrow. “Guess you’ll still be stuck with me,” he said happily.

And Yuuri, who was still trying to scowl at Victor – because really, did he think that he was Makkachin – thought contentedly, _yes_.

**Author's Note:**

> The Pyramus and Thisbe scene, which Victor and Yuuri reference, can be watched [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TiNAYpVVr4). Do give it a go. Sam Rockwell's performance as Flute/Thisbe is _magnificent_. There's also been some academic writing on this scene from a "queering Shakespeare" perspective, which can be read on Google Books [here](https://books.google.com.sg/books?id=oKj3DAAAQBAJ&pg=PT84&lpg=PT84&dq=homoerotic+pyramus+and+thisbe&source=bl&ots=cBSzNnaVC2&sig=x1zXzl_k0EUgjllgic6qQH2QOjI&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiQz53LgcXTAhWCr48KHc8cChUQ6AEIJDAA#v=onepage&q=homoerotic%20pyramus%20and%20thisbe&f=false%22).
> 
> Phichit's "The King and the Dancer" here is a nod to canon!Phichit's "[The King and the Skater](https://bonutzuu.wordpress.com/2016/12/04/the-historical-context-of-phichit-chulanonts-the-king-and-the-skater/)". 
> 
> I'm on [tumblr](http://erushi.tumblr.com/). Come say hi! 
> 
> And a final shout out to my lovely artist, [sanpape](http://sanpape.tumblr.com/). It's been a pleasure working with you. My thanks as well to the mod for organising this challenge!


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